by former Fifth District Supervisor Joe Scaramella (1993)
Some people used to think that Fort Bragg came up with the idea of moving the Coast Dump at what is now known as Glass Beach to Caspar was Fort Bragg’s idea. But Hell no. I’m the so-and-so who put that there. What we had to deal with was that you could no longer simply do like everybody did — including the city of Fort Bragg. They were dumping everything up there at Glass Beach. The whole damn thing. The sewer was running wide open into the ocean at that time. And Fort Bragg was not doing a damn thing about it. I was Board chair and I had the problem down on this end on the South Coast around Point Arena. And Mendocino was dumping right over the bluff. Right over it! All the stuff was going down there.
In one case they were using the storm drain as a sewer, they were dumping down there. You know, people can be a problem. You get a million people in a square area and hell... I would tell people, “I can go behind a stump and relieve myself, but I can't do it on Fifth Avenue in New York. Why? Because the people are there. That's why you can't do it. So the idea that these people were coming down here and just dumping sewage and trash… We had to do something about it. In Point Arena, I got the County to fix it up. We put up a garbage dump so you couldn't back up into the ocean. The lady that owned that dump area, the Stornetta Family, said that we had to cut it out. So we had to find a place. And I was stuck with the responsibility.Well, to be frank, I willingly assumed it. I wanted to find some places where people could get rid of their trash. From down here in Point Arena and on up to Fort Bragg. Mendocino was a perfect case in point. Hell, I tried. I looked over heaven and earth. I went all over. Naturally nobody wanted it near them. Who wants a garbage dump nearby?
So in 1961 I got the Health Department, they were the ones involved obviously, I got the person there, I can't remember her name, with me and we went out there where the Caspar dump is now. We bought these acres. I bought them. I went down to the Caspar Lumber Company in San Francisco -- I made two trips down there -- they were going to hold me up on the price. I said, “Ok, fellas, we'll pay it, but the assessor will be involved and it will end up costing you more in the long run.” So I got it and I got the 20 acres out there at a good price. It was thought to be huge. Much more than we’d ever need. Naturally Fort Bragg got into it. They had their trash problem at Glass Beach. I said, “Well, this ought to be a joint enterprise.” So they created a joint venture and therefore Fort Bragg got into it. But I started the gol-darn thing. Fort Bragg hadn't done a thing. So that “cultural center” on the Coast in Fort Bragg was just dumping everything into the ocean.
And you know something? They still have that attitude up there. It's just the same now. If we hadn’t forced it, they might still be dumping their trash into the ocean.
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