> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.mendolocal.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # What Belongs on a Contaminated Mill Site in the Middle of a Neighborhood? - URL: https://www.mendolocal.news/what-belongs-on-a-contaminated-mill-site-in-the-middle-of-a-neighborhood/ - Published: 2026-08-19T04:05:50.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-19T05:08:44.000Z - Description: The Planning Commission is weighing whether to let Mendocino Forest Products put the site of the former 36-acre lumber mill at Gibney and Holquist Lanes near Caspar back to work. - Author: Elise Cox - Tags: Caspar What are acceptable ways to use a site in the middle of a coastal neighborhood that is zoned industrial but is still being monitored by the California State Water Resources Control Board? That is the question before the Mendocino County Planning Commission in Case No. U\_2024-0007, involving a former 36-acre lumber mill at the corner of Gibney and Holquist lanes, about a mile northeast of Caspar. The mill dates to 1955, when the Aborigine Lumber Company completed it after several years of portable sawmill operations on the property. Ownership passed to Georgia-Pacific Corp. in 1968 and soon afterward to Louisiana-Pacific Corp. — the name many neighbors still use for the site — before Mendocino Forest Products purchased it in 1998. Mendocino Forest Products operated the mill until it closed in 2003 and dismantled most of its structures the following year, leaving only a shop building and a pump house. But contamination from the mill's years of operation remains a concern. [Show your support — subscribe for free](#/portal/signup/free) The property is listed in the state's GeoTracker database as a leaking underground storage tank cleanup site (Global ID T0604500076) and remains under a Regional Water Quality Control Board cleanup order. Monitoring wells and a filtration system are used to monitor and address contaminants in groundwater. According to comments submitted to the Planning Commission, groundwater is less than 20 feet below the surface and supplies private wells in the residential neighborhood that developed around the mill after it closed. Mendocino Forest Products is asking the commission to approve a Coastal Development Use Permit with three primary components. The first is storage of forestry materials, including culverts, timbers and fencing, along with servicing the heavy equipment used to move them. The second is fleet storage for Family Tree Services, a private company that operates from the site with about 30 employees and 15 vehicles. The third is legalization of a firefighter training facility — a stack of shipping containers configured for live-fire drills — that was constructed on the property in 2022 without permits. The application also seeks to legalize a storage container and a mobile office and to remove asphalt grindings that had been spread on an interior road for dust control. For many neighbors who submitted comments, the central concern is that renewed industrial activity on a site with a history of contamination could worsen existing groundwater problems. In a comment letter, Marie Jones — a 50-year neighbor and professional land-use planner — wrote that groundwater "serves many wells that are west of the property" and that "many of these homes already deal with contamination to their wells from petroleum products released from prior operation of a lumber mill at this site." Some residents, she wrote, "cannot drink or cook with the water from their wells." Other neighbors described living with the aftermath of the mill's operation. Sy Scaramella, whose family built a home on Mallory Drive 75 years ago, wrote that "we still receive drinking water from the mill site owners today, because of damage caused during that last period of commercial use." Norma Leah Andres, who lives on Pine Drive, wrote that "close neighbors have been getting bottled water for years" because of contamination in the water table. Roslyn Moore wrote that her own well is "not yet contaminated, but some of my neighbors' wells are." Randy and Stacey Hanks, whose property abuts the site, pointed the commission to the same GeoTracker record, writing that "ground water is already polluted." Tom Winters, a retired economics teacher who owns a home adjacent to the project, wrote that "some monitoring wells and local private wells still test as polluted." He also raised concerns that disturbing the site could spread contaminants through the air, including dioxin. [Show your support — subscribe for free](#/portal/signup/free) The commission did not decide the permit at its Aug. 6 hearing. Instead, commissioners voted 3-0 to continue the application to a date yet to be determined and ordered the entire project to be re-noticed to the public, opening a new 30-day comment period. Before voting, commissioners directed county staff to return with answers to a list of unresolved questions, including how often the fire department would use the training facility, what would happen to the asphalt grindings, and how vehicle maintenance at the site would be conducted without creating a risk of reintroducing contaminants into soil or groundwater. ### **Environmental review questioned** The application had been reviewed under a proposed negative declaration, the lowest level of environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act. The county's proposed finding was that the project's environmental impacts would be less than significant. Nearly all of the roughly 29 written comments submitted to the commission challenged that finding and urged the county to require additional environmental review, including either a mitigated negative declaration or a full environmental impact report. Several commenters also asked for more time to review a 183-page project document, saying they had only weeks to study it. The proposed negative declaration will be re-noticed along with the rest of the project when it returns to the commission. The project before the commission is already smaller than what Mendocino Forest Products originally proposed. Senior Planner Russ Ford said the original 2024 application called for using the property for log decking, which would have involved trucking raw logs to and from the site for storage. The company dropped that use after a community meeting in October 2024 and a downturn in the timber market, Ford said. The revised application is limited primarily to storage and legalization of existing structures and uses. ### **Dispute over Planning Commissioner** The hearing also opened with a dispute over Planning Commissioner Marie Jones, who represents the Fourth District and lives near the site. Jones submitted comment letters about the project as a member of the public rather than as a commissioner. She did not attend the Aug. 6 hearing. Attorneys for Mendocino Forest Products sent the county a letter arguing that Jones' participation presented a conflict of interest. They asked that she recuse herself and that her comments be disregarded. Deputy County Counsel Matthew Kiedrowski told the commission that such disputes are matters for the Fair Political Practices Commission to resolve. Because Jones was not present at the hearing, he said, she could neither recuse herself nor participate in the commission's deliberations. Her comments could be considered, he said, but given no greater weight than comments from any other member of the public. The hearing also included a broader discussion about the county's environmental review process. One commissioner said that, for more than a year, responsible agencies had not been returning comments on projects before the Planning Commission and pressed staff on how to get more agencies to respond. Staff said they follow up with agencies but eventually must bring projects before the commission. The motion to continue the project passed with Chair Kay Richards and commissioners Diana Wiedemann and Michelle Johnson voting yes. No new hearing date has been set.