Thursday, October 3, 2013

Port candidate interviews on the Waterfront in Cascadia Weekly

This week's edition of the Cascadia Weekly has excellent interviews of the four candidates for the Port of Bellingham by Tim Johnson. In the same issue, Tim also has a "Gristle" column on the City of Bellingham's habitat planning effort for the central waterfront.  COB is hosting an open house tonight at the Best Western Lakeway Inn.

The interviews with the candidates are worth a close read.  My own personal feeling is that Waterfront development has a strong chance to end up null; a dead project without enough funding to complete the cleanup.  If this happens, it would mark the end of what has been a frustrating process; a process that has the potential to waste a significant amount state or federal dollars.

The waterfront was sold to the Port for $10 dollars some number of years ago. Implicit in this deal was that the Port would pick up the tab for the clean-up costs.  I was given a copy of the 1996 Landau environmental report.  This document was a difficult read for a layman, but I was able to discern that some of the waterfront land appeared to have substantial toxic content and some of it had unstable soils. There was talk at the time venturing whether or not the Port had made a competent decision in accepting such a liability.

The development of the waterfront is still being billed as the major event in the economic future of Bellingham.  The clean-up costs alone are generally being discussed at around $150M.  ECY WA has found substantial clean-up is needed. $150M is enough money to have rebuilt the central library and to have provided a "start-up" fund that could have stimulated business downtown.  Make no mistake, the full development of the waterfront would create exceptional economic stimulus for Bellingham and Whatcom County. I just wonder whether or not a better use for the money would have been to improve the Central Business District and let GP clean-up their mess. I also wonder whether enough funding will be available to complete the project.