What finally motivated company officials is not clear, but as the target of a lawsuit alleging environmental violations, Kenmore’s Waterfront Construction, Inc. is set to close and leave the city by June 30 according to the environmentalist group that helped file the lawsuit.

Primarily claiming problems with water discharge coming from the company’s facility along Lake Washington, Seattle’s Waste Action Project announced plans in September 2009 to file a citizen’s lawsuit against Waterfront under the federal Clean Water Act.

According to Waste Action Executive Director Jeff Wingard, Waterfront last month signed a settlement agreement that calls for the company to leave Kenmore.

Essentially, according to Wingard, Waterfront intends to take steps to close out its permits. As part of that process and as part of the settlement agreement, the company also will act to return its site to the conditions that existed prior to its arrival.

Wingard added Waterfront actually agreed to undertake more restorative measures than would be required by the permit closure process alone.

“What they agreed to will greatly speed the recovery process,” Wingard said, adding the company intends to spend about $20,000 on restoration measures.

Wingard said the settlement agreement was inked about a month ago. But he added both sides had agreed not to make any announcements regarding that agreement. However, Wingard said he finally was able to receive permission from Waste Action’s attorney to answer Reporter inquiries about the settlement.

A Waterfront official did not respond to repeated requests for comments for this story. In September, Waterfront’s Derrick Jennings said his company mostly engages in waterfront reconstruction, working with residential and commercial docks. The company also does dredging work, that activity being the reason for the many barges that visit the Kenmore facility.

Jennings said that dredge material is tested as required, with the results of that testing passed on to the appropriate authorities. But is was the barges and the stockpiled dredge material that perhaps attracted the most attention from Waste Action and nearby neighbors, resident Janet Hays in particular.

Hays lives near Waterfront’s Kenmore facility and said she spent plenty of time watching and photographing the company’s activities.

“When they told me the papers were signed,” she said, “I shouted… I absolutely felt such a sense of relief.”

Hays said she can look out her window, and on the one hand, see a beautiful view of Lake Washington. If she looks in just slightly a different direction, Hays said Waterfront’s operations are front and center.

According to Wingard, Hays reported and photographed activities that allegedly were outside Waterfront’s permits.

“It became almost an obsession,” Hays admitted. She even posted videos of Waterfront’s alleged violations online.

In September, Waste Action attorneys forwarded to Waterfront a notice of their intent to sue. Judging from the notice letter and Wingard’s comments both then and more recently, allegedly improper and possibly contaminated discharges of bilge and waste water into Lake Washington were probably the most significant of Waste Action’s complaints.

Among other issues, the letter sent Waterfront claims the firm allowed improper discharge of “turbid bilge water” into Lake Washington or the Sammamish Slough on at least 20 dates ranging from January to July of 2009. The letter claims such discharges are in violation of a permit granted the firm by the state Department of Ecology.

Another major complaint, mentioned by Wingard in September, was the company’s supposed lack of monitoring of water runoff.

Shortly after receiving notice of the intent to sue, Waterfront’s Jennings issued a written statement.

“City of Kenmore and Department of Ecology officials have visited our Kenmore site several times following up on citizen complaints,” Jennings said. “Waterfront has consistently been found to be in compliance with our storm-water permit, city of Kenmore land-use issues and our administrative order from the Department of Ecology.”

Wingard insisted Waste Action never intended to force Waterfront to close.

“We didn’t run anybody out of town on a rail here,” he said, adding Waterfront’s decision to leave Kenmore was completely unexpected.

Wingard said his thoughts were speculative, but he assumes Waterfront officials took a look at the suit, some coming revisions in state laws and made a business decision to leave Kenmore.

“It kind of caught us off guard,” Wingard said. “It wasn’t anything we were seeking.”