10/20/16
A project to create a dog park in Arcata is still pending ahead of a survey of the land to determine whether it will be built on a site with toxic pollutants.
Inspectors will need to test the property at the old Little Lake Industries lumber mill site on South I Street for dioxins — a pollutant that if consumed, can cause cancer and reproductive defects — before plans for the park can move forward, city staff told council members Wednesday.
The cost to conduct the test has not yet been determined, Arcata Environmental Services Director Mark Andre said.
“It’s a contaminated site,” Andre said of the Little Lake Industries grounds. “But it’s not uniform throughout.”
Last year, during a city test, inspectors found dioxin levels 10 times those deemed safe for exposure.
Much of the contamination is believed to be associated with the lumber mills activity and practices at the time, Andre said pointing to uses for oil by mill workers on dust created by their work.
“We were very borderline at the time,” Andre said of studies conducted on the site. “Honing in on where that (contamination) is and how to treat it is the focal point for us right now.”
The cost of removing the pollutants could be expensive, according to Andre and Arcata Community Development Director David Loya.
However, the effects of doing nothing could be just as harmful and costly if the city plans to promote development on the land, Humboldt Baykeeper Director Jennifer Kalt told the Times-Standard in February.
In 2006, Humboldt Baykeeper and the Californians for Alternatives to Toxics sued the Simpson Timber Company after tests revealed high levels of dioxins. The case settled with an agreement to remove contaminated soil, a cost estimated about $500,000 The irony of it all, Arcata City Councilman Mark Wheetley said, is the funding for the cleanup process might have gone to the dog park.
Organizers with the Arcata Dog Park Working Group have long eyed the site as a place for what would be the city’s first dog park, according to Mayor Paul Pitino.
Lynnette Chen, a member of the group and lecturer at Humboldt State University, said she first thought to raise the idea of a dog park in 2012 when she adopted a dog.
“I started thinking a dog park would be good to socialize her with other dogs at the park,” she said.
Chen, who teaches business law and logic, said the group was actively watching the process to see what needed funding.
“We’re going to raise the money,” supporters of the initiative to fund the dog park said in unison.
