Sewage Plant on the Island Next to Camas? (Tacoma, Bellingham: apartment, condo)

[StealthRabbit]

Puget Sound area? And the Olympic Peninsula? I didn't see Bellingham in this suggestion (but already suggested in other-thread-by OP)

Gulf Islands (BC) was a pretty sweet place to live! (Telegraph Harbour)

Tad rainy and some really wild and interesting winter storms (for inland waters).

Point Roberts was really close (if you must live in USA)

Ecologically pretty clean and safe. We ate a LOT of fresh seafood while living there! Kids went out on the water everyday to catch and explore.

Since this particular thread is about Camas sewage Island (of which there is not one), Just settling ponds for paper making process. Used to smell like diapers in March and April, but not for last 20 yrs.

[Searching-01]

Originally Posted by 182pilot

If the entire country is in your search and you have a huge aversion to being anywhere near wastwater treatment or landfills you should not be looking at urban or suburban places. The waste has to go somewhere when there is a population center.

Well... true... but remote locations have yet other problems.

Truth is, urban, and these days even suburban to some extent, has terrible planning in most places I've looked.

But... that said said, I can recall living over in Pa as a kid at point... never thought about any of these issues, pulled that town up on Google maps... nearest landfill was 20 miles away. So some areas that are suburban "get it". (And we lived in a row home in that town. Wasn't upscale suburbia by any stretch.)

It can be done correctly... but it seems the newer the development... the close such planning fails end up being.

Trying to squeeze more profit out each year, well it's like the potato chip bags I was looking at on my counter the other day... older ones 16 oz... little newer... 15 3/4... most recent 15 1/4 oz...

Always chipping way... thanks inflation (not) LOL!

But that's a whole different discussion I suppose. Not much one can do about it except try to locate away from the problem areas. Puts the onus on one to become wealthy I suppose.

[Searching-01]

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

Puget Sound area? And the Olympic Peninsula? I didn't see Bellingham in this suggestion (but already suggested in other-thread-by OP)

Gulf Islands (BC) was a pretty sweet place to live! (Telegraph Harbour)

Tad rainy and some really wild and interesting winter storms (for inland waters).

Point Roberts was really close (if you must live in USA)

Ecologically pretty clean and safe. We ate a LOT of fresh seafood while living there! Kids went out on the water everyday to catch and explore.

Since this particular thread is about Camas sewage Island (of which there is not one), Just settling ponds for paper making process. Used to smell like diapers in March and April, but not for last 20 yrs.

Thanks for pointing out that my read of the map was incorrect.

It's not on the island... it's just across the water on the mainland. "Camas Sewage Treatment Plant".

[Searching-01]

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

OP might want to exclude the USA from future retirement sites.

At times it feels that way... into the 4th *year* of this search... 99% of the country *does* fail for me.

The other 1% is owned by the 1%, LOL! I.e. unaffordable for the rest of us... LOL!

But all kidding aside, it is true. I'm finding civil planning patently sucks.

Must be a relatively recent phenomenon. A few decades back, as a kid, I don't recall things being like this.

I find it hard to believe more folks are up in arms about it and that more civil planners aren't being fired.

Back in my home town in Fla... the Scripts Institute and a grocery store are right next to a waste transfer station....

That's a health care company and a food source... adjacent to waste transfer. Can't imagine what the planners were thinking about.

And crap like that is everywhere.

If you're aware if it... it increases the difficulty of finding an acceptable place to live by orders of magnitude.

Throw in a few others like no/minimal snow, low crime, etc. and you really are down to a very, very small sliver of the entire country. And most of those spots are very unaffordable, least for me.

But I keep "searching" as my handle indicates.

At least up until '98 when they put that waste transfer station in, my home town in Fla. passed all my personal checks. Not any more, obviously.

[StealthRabbit]

You want planning? Boulder, CO. Nice climate and recreation.

There are several other restrictive yet very pleasant locales in USA.

I'm in a federally restrictive area yet 20 min away from PDX. I can't paint or roof my home, or add outdoor lights without approvals. I purposely chose this restrictive area to avoid apartments and businesses being planted next door.

IIRC, there are about 5 private homes in Teton National Park. That's another option if you can do cold winter's or leave. I couldn't hack FL either. I would look to areas near National Labs. Great and often beautiful areas with engaged, intelligent, retirees.

[texasdiver]

There are plenty of immaculately planned communities around the US. But you pay the price for that sort of exclusivitity, and the economies tend to be very distorted because so many potential sources of employment are zoned or regulated out of existence.

Here in the Northwest you have towns like Sunriver and suburbs like Lake Oswego and Mercer Island that will protect you from living next to anything uncomfortable or unscenic. But for a price.

Down in FL you have plenty of towns like Seaside that are immaculately planned. Or Hilton Head SC, or Aspen Co. They are all over the place if you have the cash. If you don't then you'll have to live with the rest of us.

[Ttark]

OP, I assume you mean this? [url]http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=45.57296,-122.42165&z=16&t=SLB[/url]

The closest domestic sewage plant is to the east, on the mainland (next to the residential development). The thing on the island is not a domestic utility sewage treatment plant, it's the digesting pond for the paper mill and in the era before improved vapor control, was the source of the Vancouver joke "it smells like Camas". That's where pulp waste from the paper-making process is sent to be treated into solid waste and clear water. The thing to the northeast is the final-stage process where treated water is sent before being discharged to the river.

I'm sorry that I don't know the technical engineering terms for these things (I work in retail, not urban planning) but I'm sure you can suss it out from what I'm saing.

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by Ttark

OP, I assume you mean this? ACME Mapper 2.2

.

tad east... is the official City of Camas Sewer Treatment plant.

ACME Mapper 2.2

and Washougal treatment plant... tad further east
http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=45.57185,...330&z=16&t=SLB

[Searching-01]

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

You want planning? Boulder, CO. Nice climate and recreation.

There are several other restrictive yet very pleasant locales in USA.

I'm in a federally restrictive area yet 20 min away from PDX. I can't paint or roof my home, or add outdoor lights without approvals. I purposely chose this restrictive area to avoid apartments and businesses being planted next door.

IIRC, there are about 5 private homes in Teton National Park. That's another option if you can do cold winter's or leave. I couldn't hack FL either. I would look to areas near National Labs. Great and often beautiful areas with engaged, intelligent, retirees.

I lived in Westminster CO for 5 years. Worked at IBM Boulder for those years.

My car was actually broken into there, along with several other residents that night. They were pretty brazen... stole a cop's duty motorcycle and hit 7 or so other cars in the complex.

To be honest Boulder fails for me. The waste transfer station there all but ensures downtown is always crawling with garbage trucks. Not something you want to be stuck behind or have passing you in the opposite direction on a slushy day. Case of crappy civil planning IMHO.

Otherwise, over Westminster way you have Rocky Flats... read that Plutonium contamination. Farm animals over Superior / Louisville way have been know to have birth defects as a result.

The Flatirons Mall... not to far from the sealed Marshall landfill

And IBM itself is a superfund site. It was a tape drive manufacturing facility long ago... chlorinated hydrocarbons like trichlorethelyne and related are probably in the ground there. Solvents like that and freon were often used in solid state device manufacture. (I'd spend about 3 years in solid state device manufacturing some 20 years prior to my run with IBM Boulder.)

And... 40% of Boulder's water... comes from Boulder Creek. Nederland dumps a few 100,000 gals of treated sewage into it daily.

So... add in lousy climate 9 months of the year... and that it has Ca. sized price per sq. ft. housing costs... can't see it. But clearly the market can.

I think I checked the Mork and Mindy house once... something like 1100 Sq. Ft.... that's Laguna Beach level pricing.

[Searching-01]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

There are plenty of immaculately planned communities around the US. But you pay the price for that sort of exclusivitity, and the economies tend to be very distorted because so many potential sources of employment are zoned or regulated out of existence.

Here in the Northwest you have towns like Sunriver and suburbs like Lake Oswego and Mercer Island that will protect you from living next to anything uncomfortable or unscenic. But for a price.

Down in FL you have plenty of towns like Seaside that are immaculately planned. Or Hilton Head SC, or Aspen Co. They are all over the place if you have the cash. If you don't then you'll have to live with the rest of us.

Therein lies the problem... working class folks... are basically screwed.

If you're working class and notice and are trouble by the difference (my case, basically)... one is trapped between a rock and a hard place.

"The rest of us" shouldn't put up with it and the civil planners should have been fired, IMHO.

It's not about "uncomfortable or unscenic"... heck I'm in Mission Viejo, CA. I've lived in some pretty boring looking places.

It's about filth, crime, etc. It's also about site planning... somethings are just lousy design.

A thing you see *everywhere* here in SoCal is dumpsters in the parking lot, next to the mailboxes and being parked next to... The filth from the truck tipping them has to get into everything. That's just lousy site planning.

The homes aren't much better... million+ homes... 1 car length from the curb... and so close to the neighors you know what they had for dinner. Things just should be that close together. (That said, overall, S. OC is still a great place to live. Just hideous expensive for worker bees.)

I lived in a row home as a kid once... the north east, Philly Suburb, white trash area... the landfill was 20 miles away... don't even know where the wastewater plant was... but nowhere near residences. The real "ghetto" was also, similarly, elsewhere. Most of the issues I'm looking to avoid other than density, just weren't there. I was better laid out.

These flaws seem to be a much more recent thing... the constant cheap-ification of everything. "Inflation", but that's a long debate that I'm not sure has a clear answer.

Bottom line is, for these purposes, richer *is* better.

No doubt about it.

That the rest of us put up with it,in a democracy, is the head scratcher.

That said, I can see a 7 million dollar home from my front door... it's a good ways off... across I-5... but it has a view of the Mission Viejo Wastewater Plant down mountain from it. LOL!

I can't figure out who has that kind of money, but didn't build it over in Laguna Beach instead.

Actually I do know... "Emile Haddad"... a real estate tycoon... LOL! You'd think he'd have picked a little better.

Point being people much wealthier than me, are apparently oblivious to some of the points I worry about. So I'm undoubtedly a little bit of an outlier.