NCJ - SPI to pay state $800,000

North Coast Journal

Three years ago, after the California Department of Fish and Game and the Humboldt County District Attorney's Office busted Louisiana Pacific's Arcata mill for dumping contaminated sawdust, DFG Warden Jon Willcox went looking for another perp.

"I had to keep Paul busy," Willcox said, referring to the man at the DA's office he worked with on the LP case, Paul Hagen. "He's too hyper not to be busy."

Old mill sites, many of them built decades ago and located right on the bay, were an obvious target.

So Willcox went for a walk down near Sierra Pacific Industry's Arcata mill site, located directly off the Mad River Slough between Arcata and Manila.

What he found would be obvious to anyone who knew what to look for: sawdust plumes running out of culverts into the bay, petrol and hydraulic fluid leaking from old equipment, hot steaming water piped directly into the slough. On top of that, further testing revealed the presence of dioxin -- one of the deadliest of man-made substances -- in groundwater underneath the plant, in stormwater runoff and in sediment.

Basically it was a sawmill that was operating as if it were the 1950s.

"Some companies just need to be brought into the modern era," Willcox said. "And sometimes they're not going to do it unless you tell them to do it."

Thus began a three-year investigation that culminated this week with the announcement of an $800,000 settlement negotiated with the company, the largest timberland owner in the state. It follows hard on the heels of a settlement made public last month in which SPI agreed to pay an environmental group, the Ecological Rights Foundation, $700,000 in attorneys' fees, costs and oversight expenses connected to a Clean Water Act lawsuit that it had filed against the company. Combined, the two settlements amount to $1.5 million.

A key provision of both agreements is a requirement that SPI pay the Fish and Game Department $500,000 for wetlands restoration and enhancement in and around the northern end of Humboldt Bay. The agreement with the state also requires SPI to pay $200,000 to clean up pollution of wildlife habitat, with the remaining $100,000 going to the state for civil penalties.

Hagen and District Attorney Paul Gallegos described the settlement as a team effort between the DA's office, Fish and Game, the State Attorney General's Office and the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board -- a myriad of agencies bringing a big polluter to task.

"We understand legitimate business. We respect legitimate business, but if you pollute our environment, no matter how big or small [you are], we will go after you," Hagen said.
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Gallegos "lost" Paul Hagen. See also "Mass Exodus" and "HCDCC" labels for more on that.