PORT ANGELES – City officials have heard stakeholders’ ideas for redeveloping the site of the former Rayonier pulp mill after it is cleaned of toxic waste.
Now they want to hear from the public.
A public meeting is set for 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Vern Burton Community Center, 308 E. Fourth St.
It will include presentations on the site, beginning at 6 p.m., as well as displays and opportunities to discuss the future use of the 75-acre property at 700 S. Ennis St., with stakeholders and city representatives.
“This is a unique opportunity for the public to help form a vision, plan and agenda for the former Rayonier mill site,” said city spokeswoman Teresa Pierce.
Rayonier closed its pulp mill on the property on March 1, 1997, idling nearly 400 workers.
The site still has low levels of dioxins and PCBs, which are human carcinogens, as well as other toxins that were generated during its 68 years as a mill – now dismantled – that transformed wood to pulp.
The property is in the seventh year of a toxic-waste cleanup project supervised by Ecology, Rayonier and the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe.
These meetings are the first of a three-phase program to bring community vision into a redevelopment plan.
The program is being funded by a $50,000 grant from the state Department of Ecology.
The grant, as part of the Washington State Puget Sound Initiative, is designed to speed cleanup and redevelopment of one of the region’s highest priority environmental restoration projects.
After redevelopment ideas are identified, the next steps in the first phase will be to create identifiable milestones in the process, followed by a final report to Ecology.
The second phase, as yet unfunded, is intended to produce a practical cleanup and redevelopment plan as part of a broader harbor-wide strategy.
A third phase would focus on a new harbor resource management plan.
A page on the city’s Web site, www.cityofpa.us, also is being developed to let the public follow the process.
