The Need and the Opportunity
The Mill, as well as the city of Camas itself, is transforming into a crucible where the environmental movement can be renewed. For success, we remember the movement’s actual principles: Clean air, clean water and clean land. The need for shaping a better future outcome is NOW as the city is confronted by “Forever Chemicals” among other chemicals of concern which were used at the mill for decades. PFAS showed up last year in Camas’ drinking water. The city remains vague and publicly uninterested in seeking to find the source of this contamination. To date, the state has accepted, without any apparent scientific evidence, the mill’s assertion that
its historic discharges to the groundwater are not contaminating the city's adjacent sources of drinking water. Despite documented past discharges of industrial process water in unlined ditches and spills from the mill, the state apparently accepted there was no reasonable potential today OR in any contemplated future for the mill to impact Camas’ municipal drinking water. Yet Camas’ most productive well is only 1,000 feet away, and draws water from the same aquifer that the mill uses for its industrial process supply source. As shown in the Society’s diagram above, the gold shaded areas are largely left out of the remedial investigation for groundwater or other media contamination. Given the past history of disposal practices at the mill and close proximity to the City of Camas’ water supply, these areas deserve focused attention in the early investigation phase. Perhaps GP is not a source of the PFAS contamination in our drinking water - why wouldn't the Clean Up prioritize ruling out this potential as part of the start of the site testing? What do you think?
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