PORT ANGELES — Ports in Washington need to be wary of losing business to both the north and south, the top commissioner at the Port of Seattle told the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce on Monday.
Bill Bryant, president of the Port of Seattle, said he is concerned about ports in British Columbia as well as those in Texas and Georgia taking a large portion of business that now comes through the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound.
Bryant spoke to about 70 people at the weekly Monday luncheon of the chamber.
“The port’s marine operations are responsible for about 100,000 jobs in the area counties,” he said.
Grew up on Peninsula
Bryant, who grew up on the North Olympic Peninsula, in 1992 founded Bryant Christie Inc., a company that works to eliminate foreign trade barriers, develops new international markets and builds customized Internet databases of international technical standards and research.
Improved railways and highways from Georgia and Texas as well as from British Columbia east could leave Washington shut out, he said.
“I heard one of the top transportation guys in Canada say that the reason so much of the business will end up in Canada is because the people distributing the money think of it as a strategic investment in the future and those in the United States think of it as pork,” he said.
“And that is true.”
Political disbursement
He said the money in the U.S. — and Washington state in particular — is distributed politically rather than strategically.
In 2014, the Panama Canal will be widened, which will allow for easier marine transport of goods to the East Coast from Asia, Bryant said.
“That 2014 clock is ticking,” he said.
“Georgia won’t sit and wait for us to get past our post-World War II systems.
“We need to develop new funding systems, and that will take courage and political will.
“Legislators will continue to want to earmark where the money is spent, and constituencies will rise up to oppose new construction projects and the 100 agencies involved will claw and scrape to protect their turf, but if we are setting up new funding mechanisms we have to elect people who have the courage and political will to get it done.”
He also spoke of a paradox that everyone landing at ports throughout the U.S., including the ports of Seattle and Port Angeles, must pay a fee to support shallow harbors — but neither of those harbors qualifies for the funds that are raised through the fees.
“Houston, Savannah and Charleston do qualify, though,” he said.
“With these fees we are indirectly subsidizing our competitors.”
Bryant said he also is a supporter of education and hoped that it could be radically reformed because qualified workers were needed if more jobs were created as a result of economic development.
“We have to have the people to fill those jobs,” he said.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
