PORT ANGELES — Brad Collins, who is challenging incumbent Port of Port Angeles Commissioner John Calhoun, said Monday that he would want the Rayonier mill site to be cleaned up privately, not through the public development authority created by the city and port last year.
During a 40-minute debate at this week’s Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce luncheon meeting, the issues of the Rayonier site cleanup, Harbor-Works and job creation became the center of conversation.
Calhoun, seeking re-election as one of three port commissioners, and Collins will face off in the Nov. 3 all-mail election.
Focus on Rayonier
The Rayonier site — which is contaminated with pockets of PCBs, dioxin, arsenic and other toxins left by the pulp mill that Rayonier operated there for 68 years before closing in 1997 — has been a state Department of Ecology cleanup project since 2000, when the federal Environmental Protection Agency ranked the site 2 or 3 on a scale of 1 to 10, calling it “moderately contaminated.”
Harbor-Works Development Authority was created in May 2008 to direct the environmental cleanup and redevelopment of the site.
Harbor-Works is working to determine what the property should be used for after cleanup, because different types of uses require different levels of cleanup.
Vision for the site
Calhoun, 65, director of the University of Washington’s Olympic Natural Resources Center in Forks, said he viewed the Rayonier site as multi-purpose.
“It should have public access, especially to the waterfront and streams and other areas the tribe will probably control,” Calhoun said.
“A small percentage of the 75 acres will be available for industrial or commercial activity.
“What I am not in favor of is a complete open space such as a park that will cost the city money to clean up, develop and that they will have to continue to sink money into forever to maintain.”
He said his goal was to have businesses on the site that would replace the $800,000 of property tax revenue and 300 jobs created when Rayonier operated the mill.
‘Private funds’ cleanup
Collins, 61, is the deputy director of resource development and capital projects for Serenity House of Clallam County and former Port Angeles city community development director.
He said he didn’t believe a public entity such as Harbor-Works should be working on the cleanup of the site.
“First of all, I don’t think that the [public development authority] or the port should clean up the area — it should be done privately,” Collins said.
“The Rayonier dock could be retrofitted to keep the kind of activities like cruise ships oriented to a more commercial downtown area — and have some sort of tribal activity that would be more tourist oriented on the site.
“My expectation is that the site will be redeveloped and that it should be similar to the retrofitting of the Inner Harbour in Victoria.
“I think it has to occur with private funds.”
When asked about jobs and tough economic times, Collins said that if he were elected he would use port funds to leverage jobs immediately.
“I believe it is not a great idea, for example, to subsidize Kenmore Air — I think that we should build the business at the airport industrial park so that there will be jobs out there and a demand for air service, with people wanting to fly more,” Collins said.
The city of Port Angeles recently gave Kenmore — which said it was not breaking even on flights to Port Angeles — a $10,000 grant to assist with marketing.
Collins added: “One of my main reasons for supporting PenPly was that those were jobs that would be there immediately.”
Pledges 1,000 jobs
Meanwhile, Calhoun vowed to make it a personal goal for the port to create 1,000 jobs in the next six years.
“One of the things I am asking the staff to think about is to think of their work in those terms,” Calhoun said.
“I think we will have a mix of immediate return and a laying of infrastructure for the long-term future.
“In some cases, such as the airport we won’t need an immediate return on the investment.
“PenPly will show an immediate return on jobs.
“[Port tenant] ACTI [Angeles Composite Technologies Inc.] will have some in a year to 18 months, and hopefully Rayonier is about five years away with having some jobs in whatever is put at that site.”
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
