This week's Weekly 'Gristle" salutes the city for funding a building pad to overcome "profound geotechnical issues" for a building they encouraged at the corner of Railroad and Holly. But there's more to the story.
Once the notorious Pit, the city acquired the property after the original building burned down, leaving a hole in the ground. Originally purchased for a parking garage, it now houses Starbucks coffee and the architectural offices of PUD incumbent candidate Jeff McClure - ironically creating parking demand instead of supply. McClure partnered on the venture with Barclay Village interests who were benefiting from an exodus of professional services leaving downtown because of a parking deficit.
In a "special process" that skirted city procedures for disposing of property, McClure's proposal for the imposing gateway structure was selected from among just one other in a well-under-market sweetheart deal. After McClure's design was selected, he revealed that coal galleys under the site presented geotechnical issues that required the city to sweeten the pot with several hundred thousand additional public dollars.
Here's the kicker: McClure, years earlier when the city first considered acquisition, testified for an appraisal that the coal galleys below the site would prevent anything more than a three story stick-framed structure from being built. Nevertheless, his proposal was for a much more substantial structure.
In the bargain, 32 young people advocating for more public space instead of an insider giveaway were arrested and vigorously prosecuted in what at the time was dubbed the Pitgate Scandal.
Today, as PUD commissioner, McClure recently brokered another apparent insider, sweetheart deal with the backers of the proposed coal dump at Cherry Point. At a time when issues of water rights and availability are thornier than ever, McClure bent policy and maybe law to revive, extend and transfer defunct, expiring water rights for 5.33 million gallons a day to the proposed Gateway Pacific coal terminal for the next 30 years.
Challenging PUD Commission candidate Bob Burr said, “I believe this transfer was illegal because it did not meet state standards for such a transfer of rights. These purchased rights were set to expire next year, but rather than wait until the decision on coal terminal permitting was in, the PUD last year unanimously and unnecessarily approved extension of those rights for 30 years to 2042."
Comments by Readers
Tip Johnson
Oct 23, 2014Concerned that finer distinctions may be useful in discussing the PUD’s new contract with the proposed coal dump at Cherry Point, I contacted Water Resources specialist Tom Buroker at the Department of Ecology.
Tom used the analogy of owning a home connected to a city water supply. The homeowner is a customer and contracts with the city as purveyor. The homeowner gets water that is paid for, but does not gain any actual water rights - a rather technical statutory entitlement.
Similarly, the PUD purveys water to industrial customers without conveying underlying rights. However, the customer’s contract does effectively encumber the PUD’s water rights for the amount of water under contract. So the customer gains contractual rights but the PUD retains technical water rights. It is an important distinction worthy of note, but has little effect on the fate of the 2 billion gallons per year of Nooksack River water the PUD contract authorizes for the next 30 years.
Walter Haugen
Oct 24, 2014On the PUD water-for-Cherry Point issue, several of us brought this up when Ferndale changed from PUD water to well water for the city supply. It seemed far from coincidental, given that Mayor Gary Jensen was an early supporter of the proposed GPT. Of course Gary denied vehemently that there was any “quid pro quo.” I am not convinced.
Terry Wechsler
Oct 24, 2014My comment at the Ferndale hearing for the GPT EIS:
My name is Terry Wechsler, I live in Bellingham and I want to talk about facts, in this case, about water. Bellingham has great water because we divert all we need from the Middle Fork of the Nooksack River to Lake Whatcom. We get melting glaciers and snow pack. Ferndale used to drink glacier water; now you drink ground water, and from what I hear, you don’t like it so much.
Pacific International Terminals claims they would use a state-of-the-art dust and fire suppression system for that 80 acre pile of coal that’s about six stories high. That system requires ...water. 1.9 billion-with-a-“B” gallons of water per year from PUD, though the Project Information Document (PID) averages it to 5.3 mil. gallons per day. To put that in context, that’s more water than Ferndale uses daily; half of what all of Bellingham uses. It’s about a third of the water PUD currently supplies to six industrial and fifty irrigation customers in the Cherry Point area.
The PID describes a system that will use less water when it rains, more in the summer dry months when, of course, the Nooksack has the lowest flow. And according to a study done by a professor at Western for her master’s thesis,[1] because of the effects of global climate change on the Nooksack, summer flow in the Middle Fork could decrease by over 8% in the future.
The EIS must consider future water resources based on changing climate scenarios and determine how GPT’s state-of-the-art dust suppression system, that depends on our best water source, would impact this region’s homes, farms and industries in the worst case scenario over the proposed life of the terminal. And if I lived in Ferndale, I would specifically ask whether it will EVER be possible for PUD to supply your water in the future if the largest coal terminal in North America were competing with you.
Terry J. Wechsler
g.h.kirsch
Oct 26, 2014Some things never change, Tip. It’s just business as usual in Whatscum county.
Indeed, a very special process!
Sandy Robson
Oct 26, 2014Thanks to Tip J. for a very interesting article. There is a great documentary (39 minutes) on YouTube called “A Community Grows From the Pit,” adding to what Tip J. refers to about that event in Bellingham history.
According to the summary under the YouTube documentary n May 2001, hundreds of Bellingham residents occupied the empty lot at Holly and Railroad (now Starbucks) to protest the proposed corporate development. The residents protesting were advocating for a park and community garden. The protest lasted 5 days and there were 40 people arrested for civil disobedience. Link to documentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX8Vtjuif-0
McClure voting to approve the contract between SSA/PIT with the PUD for a capacity of up to 5.33 million gallons of water daily through year 2042, was/is a very bad decision, especially when there was already so much uncertainty and concern surrounding water issues in Whatcom.
In addition to that very bad decision, McClure also signed onto a June 2010 letter supporting GPT, in which essentially he, along with others, were lobbying/advising Washington Public Lands Commissioner, Peter Goldmark, to remove what the signers of that letter perceived to be inherent conflicts in the Draft Cherry Point Environmental Aquatic Reserve Plan. This letter to Commissioner Goldmark can be found online at:
http://media.bellinghamherald.com/static/downloads/Cherry-Point-GTH-communications-06-2010-to-present1.pdf
The other signers on the June 2010 letter to Commissioner Goldmark were SSA consultant Craig Cole, Jeff McClure (Whatcom County PUD President/Commissioner), David Warren (Northwest Central Labor Council at that time, and co-chair of Northwest Jobs Alliance at that time) Tim Douglas (previously served 13 years as Bellingham Mayor and former member of Puget Sound Water Quality Authority), and Dale Brandland (WA State Senator at that time).
I believe McClure’s signing onto the letter to Goldmark was a highly inappropriate action on the part of a sitting PUD Commissioner. It seems to me that could be viewed as a conflict of interest to have taken that action on behalf of a company that will then be looking for an approval for a contract for water. . .lots of water.