The city says the encampment site at 26th/Juneau will be removed/cleaned up. That, following a fire less than a week after last week’s murder, all of which have neighbors at wit’s end after what they say has been two years of a “nightmare.” We were CC’d on photos one group sent with a note to City Councilmember Lisa Herbold, including this one showing burned debris.
The photos also showed containers like these:
Neighbor Molly pleaded in the note, after detailing two years of trouble, “I urge you to do something immediately to clean up this toxic site on our once-beautiful Longfellow Creek and help the campers before they do even more damage to themselves and our beautiful green-space.”
Seattle Public Utilities spokesperson Sabrina Register has been a conduit for city info about removals/cleanups/remediations, so we asked her on Monday about the site and got this reply today:
Seattle Public Utilities has not scheduled the site for remediation as it does not meet the criteria of five or more RVs. Seattle Parks and Recreation has scheduled crews to remove the encampment and clean up the area. Removal and cleanup dates are not shared publicly as resources such as staffing can change.
Seattle is partnering with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and outreach providers to coordinate outreach to encampment locations that may be subject to removal with the goal of offering shelter to all those residing onsite.
In a reply yesterday to Molly’s note, Councilmember Herbold said she had spoken to Southwest Precinct commander Capt. Martin Rivera about the site last week, before the fire, and said that she too had heard the site was scheduled for cleanup. Herbold also noted that Rivera “told me how people experiencing homelessness who had previously lived at that location had been very helpful in the investigation leading to them identifying the murder suspect for arrest.” And she said that she regularly meets with Fire Chief Harold Scoggins, adding, “I have reviewed locations in District 1 that SFD data demonstrates have a history of repeat fires and that may be vulnerable to fire damage, including around encampments. This has, in some cases, resulted in City efforts to reduce likelihood of fires by cutting nearby brush.” But otherwise her reply included nothing else specific about this particular site. Molly, meantime, told us today there’s been some cleanup, but “it’s still a very toxic site. You can smell the plastic etc.” And she says campers that have already left the site have just moved to another spot along the creekside trail.
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