A New Opportunity for Bellingham's Downtown
Stand between several of the large, dilapidated brick buildings in the heart of this industrial wasteland, and it's difficult to imagine this place as the future site of anything, especially Huxley College of the Environment. The landscape is dotted with relics of this site's long industrial past: a large, rusting sphere that was a former acid storage tank, and a building containing what looks like the blade from a giant food processor, a machine that could once reduce an 8-foot-wide log into tiny chips in seconds. Yet Western may move some of its facilities onto this very site.
This 137-acre waterfront property, located adjacent to downtown Bellingham and rivaling it in size, is the former site of the Georgia-Pacific Corporation, used for pulp and paper operations since 1925. Before closing in 2001, GP discharged large amounts of mercury and other hazardous chemicals into the waters of Bellingham Bay. Despite the risks involved, the Port of Bellingham purchased the site for $10 in exchange for taking over its cleanup, which will exceed $40 million in cost.
Over the next 20 years the port plans to develop the site with stores, condominiums, light industry, parks and a marina. Redevelopment could bring hundreds of new jobs, thousands of new residents and tourists, and could make the property worth close to $1 billion. Development could also discourage urban sprawl by concentrating growth in the downtown area. But with so much money at stake, some groups are raising concern that environmental factors may take a backseat to development.
The main sources of pollution on the site came from the chlor-alkali plant, built in 1965 to produce chlorine and caustic soda. The mercury-tainted wastewater from this process was pumped directly into the bay until construction of the aerated stabilization basin, built in 1978 to contain the wastewater.
According to a report by Huxley student Nolan Grose, GP discharged an estimated 17,000 pounds of mercury throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, along with high levels of other chemicals such as polychlorinated byphenyls (PCBs).
An individual can accumulate mercury from contact with polluted soil or water, or by eating contaminated seafood. According to the Environmental Protection Agency's Web site, mercury can greatly impair neurological development in unborn babies and children. PCBs can cause cancer, disrupt hormone functions, harm the immune system, and are detrimental to children's development. Finding out where mercury, PCBs and other chemicals are, and how much is present, is one of the first steps in eventually cleaning them up.
"These documents here represent $5 million worth of research," said Mike Stoner, the director of environmental programs for the Port of Bellingham, pointing to one of many large stacks of paper in his cluttered office. "This is a chance to rebuild our waterfront to a new standard of environmental stewardship."
RETEC, an environmental management consulting firm based in Seattle, prepared the documents with oversight from the Washington State Department of Ecology. The documents, along with public input, will form the basis for Ecology's selection of a cleanup plan, said Lucy McInerney, Ecology's official in charge of the GP project.
The study evaluated eight possible cleanup scenarios ranging in cost from $8 million to $146 million. The port is advocating two of those alternatives, with costs of $42 and $44 million, respectively, Stoner said. The plans call for the removal of 5 million cubic yards of contaminated material to an upland disposal site, possibly in eastern Washington. Also included in the plan is restoration of approximately one mile of public beachfront, creation of over 30 acres of aquatic habitat, and complete dredging of the aerated stabilization basin to create a marina.
A highly contested issue of the redevelopment is the question of what to do with the basin, a 28-acre enclosure built to treat wastewater in compliance with the Clean Water Act. That issue was central to an initiative regarding cleanup of the bay, later thrown out in Whatcom County Superior Court.
Anna Evens, chair of People For a Healthy Bay and acting director of the Bellingham Bay Foundation, said she objects to what she feels are the port's cleanup priorities.
"It's a question of whether the port's desire for a marina should dictate the terms of the cleanup," she said.
But Leo Bodensteiner, an associate professor at Huxley, who instructed a class that performed a study on the effects of converting the basin into a marina, said he supports the port's vision.
"Since it was once a marine environment, it should be returned to the environment," Bodensteiner said. "A park only benefits people."
Cleaning up the site is only half the opportunity. One study prepared by port and city officials states the project will add 3,000 residential units and up to 4,800 jobs to the community. According to a November 2004 study by the Bellingham Community Forum on Growth Management, the city is expected to gain over 30,000 new residents in the next 20 years. The question of where to put those people is on the mind of Nicholas Zaferatos, associate professor of planning and development at Huxley.
"This is a chance to kill two birds with one stone," he said. "You don't get too many chances to double the size of a downtown through redevelopment."
One of the most damaging aspects of new development through urban sprawl is the need for transportation from these new areas to the city center, Zaferatos said. Redevelopment of this centralized site has great potential for minimizing the impacts of transportation, since many new residents may walk or utilize public transportation.
Since faculty and students would have to get from the main campus to the site, transportation will also be key to determining whether Western will have a presence on the waterfront, said Brad Smith, Dean of Huxley and member of the Bellingham Waterfront Advisory Group.
"The transportation network would have to be seamless," he said.
While Smith said he thought cleanup of the site would be effective, he stressed that moving Huxley to the site will not happen overnight, as many government organizations are involved in the process.
"People read things in the paper, and it looks like it'll happen tomorrow," he said. "I would like to blink my eyes and see what this looks like in 2026, but governments don't move at greased lightning speed."
The next step in the development process is a 60-day public review of the RETEC study, McInerney said. After any changes are made, Ecology will select a cleanup plan, put it out for another 60-day public review, and then finalize the plan.
In order for the project to succeed, Stoner said he feels that bold leadership is necessary.
"If this project gets mired in indecision, that could cause it to fail," he said. "This is a momentous change for the community."
Smith said this is not a 20-year project, but a 100-year project, and one of the most unique in North America./p>
"Some people see the site as it was, some see it as it is now: Berlin 1945. It's very hard to see what it can be," Smith said, pointing to an artist's rendering of the site 20 years from now. "Of course it will be difficult. There will be challenges and obstacles, but as a society we can't let these difficulties stop us from achieving a vision like that."
Looking over the crumbling and pitted buildings to the city and university, the port's vision of the site's future seems as distant as the mountains. The project looms large over the city; if it is not done right, this missed opportunity could haunt the city forever. But with a proper mix of caution, vision, public participation, and government implementation, its transformation can become a perfect example for other cities to follow.