PORT ANGELES — The fate of the Harbor-Works Development Authority is now up to the City Council.
The five-member Harbor-Works board voted unanimously Thursday to recommend that the council disbands the agency.
The board took the action after Rayonier Inc., announced last month that it would not negotiate further with Harbor-Works on a purchase agreement for the company’s former pulp mill site on the Port Angeles waterfront.
The city of Port Angeles, which created the public development authority in May 2008 to acquire and redevelop Rayonier Inc.’s former mill site, has the sole power to dissolve it.
The City Council is expected to consider a “vote of concurrence” at its Tuesday meeting, starting a 30-day public comment period, after which the council will consider ending Harbor-Works.
Mayor Dan Di Guilio said he expects that the seven-member council to vote to dissolve the public development authority.
“Unfortunately, they were unable to address the goals we set out for them,” he said. “There’s no sense going on any further.”
At Thursday’s Harbor-Works meeting, the mood turned somber as board members reflected on the agency’s 2 ½-year existence.
“There is no doubt that Harbor-Works, and the greater community at large, gave this our best effort,” Chairman Orville Campbell said.
The board members’ focus was on what they think Harbor-Works accomplished — and a need to ensure that the 10-year-old cleanup isn’t delayed more.
The Rayonier site on the eastern shore Port Angeles Harbor has been a state Department of Ecology cleanup site since 2000. It is contaminated by heavy metals, PCBs and dioxin left from 68 years of a pulp-mill operation.
In terms of the gains of the public development authority, board members said Port Angeles now has a strong focus on restoring Ennis Creek, which runs through the 75-acre property, and developing the site, which has been fallow since the mill closed in 1997.
Additionally, they said Harbor-Works’ “due diligence” reports — which included analysis of environmental contamination, prospects for redevelopment and the presence of Native American artifacts and remains — will be highly useful for anyone interested in building on the property.
Campbell, referring to the end of the agency as the closing of another chapter in the cleanup of the Rayonier site, added that he is “confident that Harbor-Works has established a base of valuable information and facilitated a community consensus that can serve as the foundation for those who may wish to pursue the community’s vision in the next chapter.”
But what happens in the next chapter will depend mostly on the actions of Ecology and the state Department of Natural Resources, suggested board members Kaj Ahlburg, Jerry Hendricks and Jim Hallett.
Natural Resources owns the tidelands that some of the former mill site sits on.
The three said in individual statements that the two agencies are the ones responsible for the cleanup of the Rayonier property, and they must be held accountable.
“The agency,” Hendricks said, referring to Ecology, “continues to approach it as a study project rather than a project that has a start and ending.
“And I think until the community reconciles that and steps up to demand something more from the agency, we are going to continue to see more of the same.”
Placing the property under public ownership, through Harbor-Works, was seen as a way to expedite the cleanup.
Hendricks also said that frustration over cleanup delays should not be focused at Rayonier.
It’s the state that needs to be scrutinized, he said, because it’s supposed to serve the public’s interest.
Ahlburg said he agrees, adding that uncertainty over cleanup costs, due to delays in the process, was one of the main reasons why Rayonier declined to strike a deal with Harbor-Works.
“You can’t negotiate on that basis,” he said.
Said Hallett: “We need to demand that the agencies do their job.”
Asked for a response to the comments, an Ecology spokeswoman provided a statement from Rebecca Lawson, who heads the office overseeing the cleanup of the site.
“Ecology gives credit to Harbor-Works for deepening the community’s interest in the Rayonier mill cleanup,” said Lawson, toxics cleanup program manager for Ecology’s southwest region.
“These are important conversations for the community to continue as Ecology and Rayonier push ahead on the necessary work to identify and complete the remaining cleanup in the study area.”
Harbor-Works Executive Director Jeff Lincoln at the meeting also attributed Rayonier ending negotiations to the uncertainty on the extent of cleanup left to be done.
He said the remaining cleanup of the land was estimated to cost $25 million, but cleanup of the marine sediments near shore could cost anywhere between $1.3 million and $25 million.
With any deal, Harbor-Works would have had Rayonier provide the public development authority with money to cover the estimated costs of cleanup of the land and nearby marine sediments, Lincoln said.
But he said that Rayonier could not be assured the estimate for the nearby marine sediments would be accurate because of the large range. If the costs exceeded the estimate, the company would be liable for the additional work.
Without knowing its total costs, it could not make a deal, he said.
Rayonier has also attributed uncertainties over cleanup costs as one of the reasons it ended negotiations with Harbor-Works.
The city and the Port of Port Angeles loaned the public development authority a total of $1.3 million. Little of that money will be returned, Lincoln has said.
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Harbor-Works news release and statement: http://issuu.com/peninsuladailynews/docs/hw20100902-pressrelease-dissolution?viewMode=magazine&mode=embed
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
