SEATTLE — The scrapping of four mothballed Steel Electric ferries has been put on hold after the buyer, Environmental Recycling Systems, asked for a delay because of the plummeting price of metal prices.
The company had planned to tow the 80-year-old vessels — two of which once plied the waters between Port Townsend and Keystone Harbor — to Mexico to be scrapped.
The Illahee, Nisqually, Klickitat and Quinault are now moored off Bainbridge Island at the ferry system’s Eagle Harbor docking facility.
The state is seeking new bids for the more than 80-year-old ferries, which were pulled from service in November 2007 because of rusting hulls.
The state ferries system also is considering not scrapping the boats at all, but instead accepting a proposal from George Heidgerken, owner of a Tacoma company, Managing Green LLC, to keep the vessels intact and in local waters rather than scrapping them, said Marta Coursey, Washington State Ferries director of communications.
“They made us a favorable proposal,” she said.
Deal was fallback
Coursey said a deal with Environmental Recycling Systems would still be considered as a fallback proposal.
That company recently agreed to pay the state $500,000 plus 10 percent of the recycling revenue, which the state says will be about $200,000.
Under that agreement, ERS would pay the cost of towing the boats to Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico, for dismantling.
The deal with ERS fell through late last week, Coursey said, after the price of steel plummeted from a high of $700 per metric ton to $130.
The state on Friday put out a call for other parties to express interest in the vessels, she said, and they have until 4 p.m. Monday to make that interest known to the state.
If the state accepts a company’s bid, she said, “Whatever proposal they would have, they would have to move the vessels within seven days.”
She said the price for the four vessels is $650,000.
A 64-car, 750-passenger vessel is now being designed by Todd Pacific Shipyards of Seattle, which is expected to begin construction this summer.
The new ferry, loosely designed after Massachusetts’ Island Home, would replace the lighter-weight, 50-car Steilacoom II, which the state has leased from Pierce County to operate on the Port Townsend-Keystone route during ferry construction.
The Steilacoom II is in dry dock at the Todd Shipyards Harbor Island yard in Seattle, and ferries officials do not expect it to return to service in Port Townsend until Feb. 15, two weeks longer than originally planned, after additional maintenance and repairs were necessary.
Todd, the lone bidder, and the state agreed to a 540-day, $65.5 million contract to build the 64-car ferry.
The 64-car ferry project is expected to employ about 200 union laborers.
The Legislature appropriated $84.5 million for two Island Home-model ferries for the treacherous Port Townsend-Keystone route, but Todd’s bid came in $40 million over the state ferries engineer’s estimate for construction of two vessels.
Defending the bid, Steve Welch, Todd chief executive officer, cited Gov. Chris Gregoire’s 18-month fast-track ferry-building schedule, soaring commodities costs and significant state changes in the original Island Home design.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
