Photograph
CAMAS — Camas metropolis officers have requested the state Division of Ecology to require cleanup on the Georgia-Pacific paper mill web site intensive sufficient to make it secure for housing and different makes use of past heavy business.
The Camas Metropolis Council handed a decision Feb. 18 stating that metropolis leaders “deeply value the role the G-P mill has played in the city’s history and recognize its continued significance as an economic driver,” however wish to make sure the 661-acre downtown Camas web site has a variety of redevelopment prospects ought to G-P ever resolve to shut the paper mill.
Based in 1883, the Camas paper mill has been owned and operated by G-P, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, since 2000. In 2018, G-P introduced it was shuttering the Camas pulp mill and far of its paper-making operations. At the moment, the mill runs one paper line and employs about 150 employees.
The council’s decision factors to the mill web site as “one of the primary gateways into the city,” and notes the location’s prime location on the shores of the Washougal and Columbia rivers, adjoining to Camas’ historic downtown purchasing and eating district.
“Given the site’s legacy and its importance to our community,” the decision states, “it is imperative to ensure the cleanup efforts are fully protective of human health and the environment and preserve future private and public redevelopment options, including … a broad range of future uses from residential and commercial development to natural and recreational spaces.”
Ecology and G-P have been working collectively on a contamination investigation and environmental cleanup plan on the Camas mill since 2021. The town’s decision asks the state to approve a cleanup degree that might “provide the greatest flexibility of uses in the future and safeguard public health and environmental quality.”
If Ecology decides G-P should clear the location to a heavy industrial degree, metropolis officers concern it should “significantly limit the site’s future development potential and likely preclude residential or natural area uses, restricting the ability to adapt to changing community needs.”
Ecology is anticipated to resolve the mill cleanup degree when the state enters into its “cleanup action plan” part in 2027 or later.
Metropolis officers’ push for a better degree of environmental cleanup aligns with suggestions gathered by the Camas Mill Cleanup Neighborhood Advisory Group, created in 2021 to provide the general public a voice within the prolonged cleanup course of.
In line with the advisory group, nearly all of the Camas neighborhood helps efforts to wash the mill web site to a level that might sometime permit for mixed-use, residential, industrial and different nonindustrial makes use of.
The decision acknowledged the environmental cleanup course of is difficult and will take a number of years and even a long time to finish, however advised Ecology there’s a “critical” have to “take steps today to secure the broadest range of possibilities for this key property.”
Camas Metropolis Administrator Doug Quinn mentioned final week that metropolis leaders reached out to G-P representatives earlier than bringing the decision to town council.
“We notified them earlier (about the resolution) and maintain an open connection with them,” Quinn mentioned.
Ecology is also reviewing G-P’s allow to discharge pollution into water our bodies. In line with the neighborhood advisory group, the mill’s draft renewal allow accommodates extra stringent wastewater discharge limits and will require a examine to see if the mill is contributing to the poisonous chemical compounds referred to as PFAS which were discovered within the metropolis’s public consuming water system, in addition to necessities for weekly rainfall monitoring and annual E. coli monitoring.
Ecology will host a digital public listening to on the allow at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, with feedback due by March 13. For extra data, go to bit.ly/41uOxyx or downtowncamas.com/camaswamillinfo.