A recent Bellingham Herald editorial urged local citizens to educate themselves about the complex issues surrounding Bellingham’s waterfront redevelopment. We couldn’t agree more. In fact, our own research into these matters led us to file the Healthy Bay Initiative in the first place. In the spirit of community education, I’d like to share some of what we’ve learned.

Thorough Cleanup?
We all know that to have a bright new waterfront neighborhood the mercury and other toxins in the Georgia-Pacific mill site must be cleaned up. Unfortunately, the Port of Bellingham plans to meet environmental standards for the site with a neat bit of legal chicanery.

The Port’s consultants have outlined a two-phase cleanup (see “Environmental Protection Standards,” Retec, Sept. 2, 2004). Phase I will remediate the site “to comply with industrial cleanup levels.” Phase II would occur only “if/when” parcels are developed for non-industrial uses. During Phase I, these “additional actions will be administratively implemented as restrictive covenants.” Such covenants constitute a legal fiction that permit individual parcels to be listed for mixed-use development, even though they have been cleaned only to an industrial standard.

This hardly seems in keeping with public expectation. Rather than cleaning up the mess as promised, the Port’s strategy sets us up for an ongoing patchwork of remediation and risk. Assuming we can find developers willing to take on these restricted properties, who will want to live or work in a half-built neighborhood where nearby parcels may yet be subject to toxic cleanup?

Other documents state that “most no-industrial site uses would involve placement of a cap over the site to prevent direct contact with soils…” and mercury vapor monitors would be required in all enclosed buildings (Retec letter to Dept. of Ecology, Sept. 21, 2004). Is this really what we want? A downtown neighborhood where workers and residents live with the constant specter of mercury vapor poisoning and where we’re cautioned to avoid touching the dirt?

With regard to the Whatcom Waterway, we’re concerned about Item 11 of the Purchase and Sale Agreement between the Port and G-P, wherein both parties jointly agree NOT to “advance, promote or attempt to influence” any remediation plan other than “Alternative K.” Alternative K involves covering contaminated marine sediments with a layer of sand, making the risk of re-exposure a permanent feature of our waterway. Its adoption flies in the face of the lengthy process by which the Department of Ecology and other agencies had already approved a plan calling for removal of contamination by hydraulic dredging. We find it unconscionable that the Port has attempted to subvert this process and align itself with the interest of the liable corporation in this matter. [Ed. note: The City of Bellingham is also contracturally bound to "Alternative K" because of the so-called "Remediation Interlocal" with the Port signed in 2005.]

The Initiative
Our review of these and scores of others documents convinced us that we must do better. Our community deserves a cleanup that meets the highest environmental standards and is in place before we start building shops, offices or condominiums. This isn’t the hysterical raving of environmental wackos, nor a diabolical plot by greedy developers. It’s a call for a sensible and practical investment in our community’s future.

But we won’t get the best cleanup unless we ask for it. Without a clear directive from the public, the Department of Ecology will continue along the shortsighted tack the Port has set.

This is where the Healthy Bay Initiative comes in. Simply put, the Initiative requires our City Council to put away their rubber stamps and become active advocates on behalf of the citizens of Bellingham for a higher standard of cleanup.

Some have criticized the initiative as vague, but they’re missing the point. It is neither our business nor our intention to try to dictate the specifics of any cleanup plan, nor to influence any land use decisions. The Healthy Bay Initiative is not about telling scientists or city planners how to do their jobs. Rather, the initiative codifies a basic principle as a matter of public policy. That principle is simply that the citizens of Bellingham desire our downtown waterfront to be permanently cleaned to the highest environmental standard, and we expect our public officials to do everything possible to ensure this happens. Our community deserves nothing less.

Anna-Hall Evans is the Community Relations Director of the Bellingham Bay Foundation and the Chair of People for a Healthy Bay.