PORT ANGELES — Port of Port Angeles commissioners held a second public hearing on their 2025 capital budget and comprehensive plan of harbor improvements, and they’re expected to approve it during a special meeting today.
The budget of $23.5 million in revenues and $22 million in expenses and was essentially the same one presented at a public hearing Oct. 29, said Jennifer Baker, interim director of finance and administration, with only minor grammar changes.
The marine terminal ($2.9 million), John Wayne Marina ($2.2 million) and Port Angeles Boat Haven ($2.1 million) will be the largest operating revenue contributors.
The port has $12.4 million in capital projects planned for 2025. About 70 percent of the costs will be covered by $8.8 million in grants.
The rehab of taxiway A at William R. Fairchild International Airport ($5.4 million) is the port’s biggest project next year.
Among others are replacing the boat launch floats at John Wayne Marina ($340,000) and continuing to develop the Marine Trade Center site ($1.2 million).
Commissioners will vote on adopting the final budget at a special meeting at 8 a.m. today. A copy of the 2025 budget can be found in the Nov. 19 meeting packet at tinyurl.com/3umr8kwc.
Commissioners will also vote today on a 1 percent increase to the property tax levy and the revised capital plan of harbor improvements that includes the capital budget and recreation and public access plan.
Commissioners gave first consideration last week to a lease with Project Macoma, a two-year pilot project of Ebb Carbon, a California startup that will test a carbon dioxide removal system that aims to use seawater to mitigate climate change.
The one-year lease for berthage space at Terminal 7 and land at the Intermodal Handling and Transfer Facility (the log yard) has two one-year options to renew. Project Macoma would pay monthly rent of $4,436.64 or $53,239.68 for the year.
Ebb Carbon would use the space for a mobile office, laboratory, research and development, light manufacturing, prototyping and testing Project Macoma’s electrochemical technology. The process would involve pulling seawater from the harbor, treating it to make the water less acidic and then returning the alkaline water back into the ocean, where it would soak up carbon from the atmosphere.
Project Macoma has been testing the system in a laboratory setting at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Sequim since 2023.
Although the lease is supposed to commence Dec. 1, port Executive Director Paul Jarkiewicz said the agency hadn’t yet received the memorandum of agreement from the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe that is needed. Water quality permitting from the state Department of Ecology is in place, he said.
Commissioners will give the lease second consideration for approval at its special meeting today.
Commissioners waived second consideration and approved applying for a grant through the state Emergency Management Division for funds from FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program. The port’s desire to improve Tumwater Creek while protecting its existing assets fit with BRIC’s focus on reducing and removing risks associated with extreme weather events and natural disasters, grants and contract manager Katharine Frazier said.
The $300,000 grant would fund planning and design of possible solutions to repairing the creek and mitigating flooding and slides.
The state would pay half of the BRIC program’s required 25 percent non-federal match, Frazier said, and the port would pay the remaining share of $37,500.
Also last week, Jarkiewicz told commissioners that repair of the terminal roof at the airport had been completed and would add about 20 years to its life. Port staff removed the old roofing and installed new panels that had been prepared by McCreary & Son.
It was the port’s first self-performed capital project; it wants to continue to do more work with its in-house team.
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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com.
