See new (Dec. 2007) text below. Photo taken soon after pulp mill closed. Pulp mill closed March 30th 2001. Paper mill closed December 21 2007. See my blog entries on GP and Bellingham's waterfront redevelopment. Back in my college days (mid 1970s), Fairhaven College (a branch of WWU) named it's newsletter "The Tuna Gas News." Sort of a spoof on GP's smell. In later years of pulp mill operation, the smell was less evident. When I was still in high school, I lived in Pullman, WA. while my sister was attending Fairhaven College. In 1971 there was a test of a nuclear warhead under Amchitka Island in the Aleutian Islands off of Alaska. Some folks around Fairhaven College worried that the Amchitka blast might set off earthquakes along fault lines all down the coast. It might crack GP's chlorine plant sitting in the middle of Bellingham. Well, that "end of the world" scenario didn't happen. When I lived in the dorms at Fairhaven (late 1970s) there was a dorm called The Bridge Project. It was folks past retirement age going back to college. One bridger used to tell interesting stories about driving a fuel truck into GP. Hog fuel , as it was called. Burning old bark and wood waste to supplement the plant's steam supply. He would say that after his load got dumped into the hopper, it would all be burned up before his truck left the yard. Impressive. Sitting in Viking Commons Dining hall, I would watch as the smoke from the mill turned darker all of a sudden. "Must be another load of hog fuel." Then I heard an urban legend that the log chipper blade had so much inertia that it would keep spinning on it's axis for several hours after they turned it off. Maybe it was over a day. I forgot. While I never worked at GP, the mill was a source of interesting goings on. I think Georgia Pacific's old log chipper is now sitting in a recycling yard. Bring it back to the site and make it a sculpture? In Spokane, WA. I visited an old heating plant called Steam Plant Square. As of 2005, it made interesting decor for a restaurant. |