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Reviving Marine Cargo Would Require New Facilities: Port Advised to Avoid 'Build It, They Will Come'

Posted on: Wednesday, 3 May 2006, 12:00 CDT

By John Stark, The Bellingham Herald, Bellingham, Wash.

May 3--The Port of Bellingham would need to make significant new investments in harbor facilities to revive the marine cargo business that died out in the 1990s, according to a Tuesday presentation to port commissioners.

Consultant Del Pearson advised commissioners not to make that investment unless a shipper is willing to make a long-term contractual commitment to use port facilities.

"There really isn't any wisdom in taking a 'build-it-and-they-will-come' approach," he said.

Bellingham, like many smaller Northwest ports, lost its once-lucrative shipping business because local industries such as Georgia-Pacific West Inc. and Alcoa Intalco Works either curtailed production or switched to cheaper container ports such as Tacoma.

Pearson also said waterfront land is in short supply. Despite Whatcom County's disadvantages in geographic location and transportation links, demand for industrial waterfront land to accommodate shipping here will eventually return. But Pearson said he couldn't predict how soon that would be.

Pearson's remarks preceded a public comment session on a related matter: the port's plan to remove the federal shipping channel designation from the inner portion of the Whatcom Waterway.

Port officials say the regulatory change will increase local control over redevelopment of the waterway banks for public access, making it easier to install pedestrian bridges and moorage floats for pleasure craft.

They pledge to keep the existing marine terminal in place for cargo ships or other large vessels. They also contend that the benefits of the federal designation are small - amounting to no more than limited federal funding for dredging in the unlikely event that large vessels would need to use the inner waterway.

Darren Williams, president of Bellingham Local 7, International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, with about 22 full-time members, has no objection to the regulatory change, as long as the port keeps its commitment to the viability of the existing deep-water terminal at the end of Cornwall Avenue.

Williams predicted that as truck shipping grows more expensive due to rising fuel costs and highway congestion, short-haul water shipping could make a comeback.

"It might take five years, it might take 10, but this community is going to need a facility," Williams said.

Three others who spoke urged the commissioners to wait before asking the U.S. Congress to approve removing the federal channel designation. They argued that a decision should wait until the Washington Department of Ecology approves a plan for dealing with mercury-tainted sediments in the waterway.

One of the three, Bellingham Bay Foundation Executive Director James Johnston, contended that the port's main motive for the change is to clear the way for the pleasure boat marina port officials want to build inside G-P's wastewater treatment lagoon. If the waterway remained a federal channel and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed dredging it, the cheapest disposal site for dredged material would be the lagoon, Johnston said.

The foundation favors using the lagoon in that way. They contend that the mercury-tainted waste could then be covered with clean fill to create a new waterfront park.

Reach John Stark at 715-2274 or john.stark@bellinghamherald.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Bellingham Herald, Bellingham, Wash.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Bellingham Herald, Wash.

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