Wednesday, January 22, 2014 • The South Whidbey Record
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them rattled. “We haven’t had a burglary in nearly 10 years,” said Cheryn Weiser, executive director of Senior Services. “It was a little bit of a shock to say the least.” “You feel like you’ve just been violated,” she said. “The trust you have with the community we serve has been shaken a bit.” The break-in occurred
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minutes after getting the call. Firefighters accessed the fire from a neighboring house. They had to string fire hose approximately 500 feet down a ravine created by last year’s landslide and up a mound where the abandoned house was resting. A brush apparatus holds 250 gallons of water. While one was used to fight the blaze, the other two were used to ferry water to the site, Michael said.
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however, that these are preliminary results and the data must be analyzed in greater detail. The additional information should help determine just how far and fast the contamination is moving, she said. In 2005, Marty Winn, the owner of Whidbey Marine and Auto Supply on Main Street — now closed — reported a gasoline leak from an underground tank. Up to 7,000 gallons was estimated to have spilled. The store owner has worked with Ecology, Department of Health, and Island County since 2005 through Ecology’s Voluntary Cleanup Program to investigate the pollution in order to perform the required cleanup. Interim cleanup work from 2006 to 2012 removed or dissipated some of the fuel, and all tanks at the former service station were removed when the facility closed in 2011, according to Department of Ecology officials. The four new wells were tested along with nine previously drilled wells, all of which were dug to depths of 60 or 100 feet, according to agency documents. A total of seven of the 13 were found
between the hours of 11:30 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 15. The thieves are believed to have entered through a back door, using a flat, sharp object to pry it open. From there, the burglars made their way through the building prying open doors to locked offices. They made off with three laptops: a grey Dell Latitude, a newer model Dell with docking station and a 15-inch screen Toshiba. Some cash and a yellow Motorola Walkie
In all, 20 firefighters from Central Whidbey Fire and Rescue, North Whidbey Fire and Rescue, Naval Air Station Whidbey and South Whidbey Fire/EMS assisted in dousing the blaze. The fire was extinguished around 1:50 a.m. Monday morning and a small number of firefighters remained on scene throughout the day extinguishing flare-ups. Michael said a fire investigator combed through the wreckage Tuesday after The Record’s press deadline to determine a cause of the blaze.
to have petroleum contamination above state cleanup standards. The older wells were all located in the nearby vicinity of the old gas station, however, and the new wells — all drilled to a depth of 100 feet — were spread farther out with the hopes they would provide a broader picture of both the progress and direction of the plume. While contamination was found in the closest of the new wells, which is located directly across Main Street from the former store, the other three were all 100 or more yards away and got clean bills of health. Despite the positive results, this isn’t the end of the clean up or monitoring effort, Escobedo said. A meeting with the former gas station’s owner, his consulting firm Farallon Consulting and state regulators will be held in the immediate future to determine what additional remediation will be required. “We’re not done,” Escobedo said. “We still have issues we need to address. This remains a contaminated site.” Information on the cleanup, including the newly available data from the four monitoring wells, is available online at https://fortress. wa.gov/ecy/gsp/Sitepage. aspx?csid=5610
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Talkie with a charger was also taken. The information contained on the computers includes non-detailed mailing and membership lists. The level of information that may have been compromised is equivalent to that which is commonly found in a phone book, organization officials said. Senior Services of Island County will be following this announcement with notifications to those whose information was involved.
Calls to the Island County Sheriff’s Office for comment were not returned by press time, but Weiser said the burglary was reported and that an investigation is underway. In the meantime, South Whidbey Center employees are doing their best to make do as replacement computers have not yet arrived. “It’s certainly a disruption in our service,” Weiser said. Lynae Slinden, director of South Whidbey Center,
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has been using her personal computer to conduct business. It’s not the best situation, but the work has to be done, she said. Slinden added that three replacement computers are expected to arrive Wednesday. Burglaries on South Whidbey are on the rise. Between June 1 and Dec. 11 of 2013, there were 87 residential burglary reports on the South End, from Houston Road south. That’s a rise of 27 percent from the 63 reported
burglaries during the same time period in 2012, and an increase of 39 percent from the 53 burglaries that occurred during the same six months in 2011. Weiser was aware of the rash of burglaries and wasn’t too excited about joining the ranks of victims. Weiser is asking anyone with any information about the burglary to call her at 360-331-5703 or contact the Island County Sheriff’s Office.
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