Excellent article, Helen.
I learned a lot more about the Marine Terminal than I knew before....and I've been fairly closely following the Port of Olympia for quite a few years. My only disagreement is in offering this log shipping opportunity AT ALL any longer to Weyerhaeuser.
The renewal lease process for this operation is coming up starting this next month...and we must NOT renew this lease.
I am truly in dumbstruck disbelief finding out the $500/month rent figure.
How is it possible that the Port of Olympia has been charging a multi-billion dollar corporation with vast land holdings and profits....far less rent for 25 prime acres of our precious waterfront, than it costs for a single person to rent a tiny studio apartment in this same town???
The Port (read: our taxes---not Weyerhaeuser) spent over $12M on a storm water system to handle the log operation effluent--which then failed--and it became necessary to sue the Port to fix the ecological detriment, resulting in a legal payout of more than $****....not counting legal fees and penalties. This kind of story is repeated over and over at the Marine Terminal....an entity which closes off and occupies a huge chunk of our most precious public waterfront real estate, yet provides few jobs---and less all the time.
It is SO beyond time to shut down the Marine Terminal!!
Our past Olympia mayor Bob Jacobs (who I see also provided public comment for this article) wrote a position paper over 30 years ago on the unviable nature of the Marine Terminal. It has only gotten worse since then, not better.
It's an unsightly, inaccessible, polluting, expensive boondoggle of an operation and a colossal piece of corporate welfare.
The community must unite to CLOSE DOWN the Marine Terminal.
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