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Beginnings
The environmental history of the Snoqualmie Mill site is extensive, complicated and often misunderstood. Prior to 1917 when the Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Co. opened for business, the property was a wetland home to riparian plants and animals. In fact, Borst Lake (or, the Mill Pond as most people know it today) didn’t even exist. When the Weyerhaeuser Co. purchased the property in 1914, the pond was created for storing logs and the northern section of the property was filled in with hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of fill material in order to make it suitable for development and industrial use.
Above - the Snoqualmie Mill (left) and Borst Lake (right) storing logs, c. 1920. Credit: Cress-Dale, Snoqualmie Valley Museum Collection.
Operation
From 1917 into the early 1990s, the property hosted a fully operational (not to mention legendary and record-setting) lumber mill, owned by the Weyerhaeuser Company. During this time, environmental awareness was far behind the standards of today and practices around the proper disposal and treatment of hazardous materials were primitive to non-existent. As a result, a significant amount of organic and chemical contamination has been detected through various environmental reviews of the Mill site property from the 1970s to present day.
Above - The Snoqualmie Mill Site and facilities in front of Borst Lake, c. 1950. Credit - Harold Keller, Snoqualmie Valley Museum Collection
Discovery and Evaluation
In 1990, the Weyerhaeuser Snoqualmie Mill site was “discovered” by the Washington State Department of Ecology as a contaminated cleanup site and registered into their database as “awaiting cleanup.” The Department conducted their first and only official environmental review of the site in 1993, but the status of the site has not changed since its discovery. A Site Hazard Assessment (the process to determine the severity of contamination of a cleanup site) was completed in August of 2021 by the Department of Ecology, where they found documentation of PCBs and other hazardous contaminants and declared the site to have one of the highest risks of hazards to human and environmental health in the State of Washington. For more information on the DOE's findings, visit our Site Hazard Assessment page.
Recent Plans for Development
In 2010, the Mill site property (excluding Borst Lake, or “the Mill pond”) was sold to Snoqualmie Mill Ventures, LLC, a development company owned by Tom Sroufe and Mac McInnis. Snoqualmie Mill Ventures created DirtFish Rally School soon after purchasing the property and has been operating the rally driving school in this location ever since.
Once outside the boundaries of the City of Snoqualmie, the Mill site was annexed into the City limits in 2011 as a result of an offer from King County. The annexation stirred controversy in the community, raising concerns amongst residents and community members that the annexation would lead to large-scale development on the property; however, the City assured the public that the annexation was in fact an aim to preserve the site and protect it from industrial use in the future.
In 2017, Snoqualmie Mill Ventures, LLC officially submitted its application to the City of Snoqualmie to transition the Mill site into a planned commercial/industrial development, boasting “campus and corporate offices along with light industrial sites, accompanied by retail space and one-of-a-kind apartment living,” according to the developer’s website. Presently, the plans also include a 14,000 square foot restaurant, 31,000 square foot event center and a four-acre, outdoor amphitheater.
Environmental Impact
In the fall of 2017, the developers began the process of preparing an Environmental Impact Statement for the site to determine the extent to which the proposed development will impact the existing and surrounding environment. To view the scoping memo for the Environmental Impact Statement, click here.
In April 2020, a draft version of the environmental impact statement (DEIS) was released to the public. To view the document in full, click here.
A total of 127 comments on the DEIS, from 19 organizations and 78 members of the public , were submitted to the city by the July 2020 deadline. The complete set of comments can be viewed here.
In December 2021, the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) was released to the public. To view that document in full, click here.
To view the developer’s full proposal and plan for the future of the Mill site, click here.
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