News from the Arcata Dog Park

Hi everyone!

Well, we have some movement from the city of Arcata on the Little Lakes Industries Property (LLP) by the Arcata marsh, a piece of land we’ve been advocating for more than three years! Some of you have been there with us, and we thank you for that support and advocacy. Keep it up! Here’s the latest:

Arcata City Council gave an update at this week’s meeting on the LLP. The city was awarded a grant from EPA to assess any contaminated sites. To implement the grant, the city will need to create a 5 to 7 person committee to prioritize for which sites the grant should be used, and we will be active in getting a seat on this committee. If the grant is used for LLP, then the tentatively approved sampling plan can be used to determine where, if anywhere, there is contamination. The time frame for sampling is likely October or November of this year.

The community development director pointed out that if the city knows the uses for the site, they can determine appropriate levels of cleanup for those uses. This means we need to push early for designating the land on the south end for the dog park because the clean up required for a dog park is different than for other uses (e.g., a restaurant, children’ playground, residential use, etc.). This gives us a place and voice at the table early on as the testing progresses.

The environmental services director noted that the land just adjacent to I street hasn't shown evidence of contamination, so work on an off road path for pedestrians may be able to be built early. We’ve always advocated for a path along the area where we hope the dog park will be built. Only when we know what contamination is present will the city be able to apply for cleanup grants, if any are needed. Estimated time to complete any needed cleanup is probably around 1 to 2 years. So we should have a pretty good idea this winter about any clean up in the area we’ve designated for the dog park.

We’ll keep you posted as this moves along and invite you to attend any and all meetings this new committee holds as they discuss usage of LLP. We’ll need as many voices at these meetings as possible to demonstrate community support for a dog park. We’ll be in touch!

Pam on behalf of the Arcata Dog Park Working Group