An environmental dispute between a Glendale construction company and its residential neighbors is driving a woman out of her home.Located off the 299 between Fieldbrook and Blue Lake, Kernen Construction Co. offers excavating, paving, concrete, asphalt, metal fabrication and other services. From the company’s 37-acre site at 2350 Glendale Drive, employees crush, mix, transport and pile rock aggregate materials into small mountains – an understandably loud business activity – for 11 hours on weekdays and 10 hours on Saturdays.Although Glendale has “traditionally been an industrial site,” as Humboldt County’s Planning and Building Department Director John Ford put it, the various industrial businesses along Glendale Drive are surrounded by homes. Flanked by marshy agricultural land and hilly redwood forest, residents like Glendale for its countryside feel.Alas. “Any time you have residences and industrial uses, you’re going to have conflicts,” Ford said of the neighborhood. Even so, longtime community members say they lived in harmony with Kernen Construction – founded in 1986 – for decades. But just over a year ago, they say, living next to the company became unbearable literally overnight.Boiled down, the residents have two concerns: the noise and the environment. Accused by its neighbors of flouting environmental protection laws and disregarding the operational conditions of its permit, Kernen Construction has attracted the scrutiny of the state water board, the county planning and building department and a lawyered-up environmental nonprofit. They’re doing what they can to investigate accusations against the company, but for Owens and her neighbors, change isn’t coming fast enough.Kernen Construction founders Scott Farley and Kurt Kernen didn’t respond to interview requests for this story.Read More
