Twenty Years Ago

To celebrate 20 years of publishing Whatcom Watch, we will be publishing excerpts from 20 years ago. David Laws has been generous enough to volunteer to review the Whatcom Watch from 20 years ago to find suitable material to reprint. The below excerpts are from the March 1993 issue of Whatcom Watch.

Port of Bellingham Wetland Mitigation for Little Squalicum Creek

Business as usual! The Port is pushing along in a vacuum with little concern for public involvement in its wetland mitigation planning. On the afternoon of March 18 the Port will meet with a technical review committee (assorted local and state agencies) to review the Port’s wetland mitigation design for the Little Squalicum Creek area. And that evening the Port will take citizen input on the wetland design at 7 pm in the Harbor Center Building, 1801 Roeder Avenue. It appears this will be the first and only official public input and hearing on this project. It’s an example of government at its worst! After all is said and done, then ask the citizens what they want! Finally, on March 23, there will be a ceremony with the City, County and the Port to sign an agreement for this project.

This project is partial mitigation for the Port’s filling of 21 acres of wetlands to build the Bellingham Airport runway extension last year. The Port has also never held a public hearing on its required remaining wetland mitigation in the airport vicinity. Citizen’s [sic] have repeatedly asked to be actively involved in the Port’s wetland process for several years — both at the airport and at Little Squalicum.

Some citizens hope to create the Little Squalicum vicinity (West of the Vocational Institute and south of the Oeser Company on Marine Drive) into a public park. Others would like to see the wood preservative toxic pollution from Oeser cleaned up.

Transportation Questions

In order to get new transportation answers, we need to ask new questions. Here are mine:

Why can this country afford four air forces, but not afford to reinstate Seattle to Bellingham passenger rail service?

Why can local Bellingham taxes be used to build a 14 million dollar Alaska ferry terminal, to serve an overwhelmingly non-local clientele. But there isn’t enough money available to even study, say, the role light-rail (streetcars), might play, if we were to go back to this successful, proven technology.

Why is it economically and politically possible to contemplate forced relocation of whole neighborhoods of people in order to lengthen the runways for Bellingham International Airport? In the 23 years I have lived in Bellingham, there has never been an instance of Bellingham Airport runways being too short to serve my needs. Why should my taxes subsidize the needs of Vancouver businessmen?

How many of the port Commissioners’ homes are located in the proposed new super-loud flight patterns?