PORT ANGELES — Organizers of the Harbor-Works Public Development Authority say they must “get the organization stood up” before they can consider plans to market the Rayonier Inc. former pulp mill site.
Jim Haguewood, its interim director, said Monday the five-month-old agency was “just learning to walk.”
Haguewood and Orville Campbell, chairman of the Harbor-Works board, spoke to the weekly lunch¬Âeon meeting of the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The event in the banquet room of the CrabHouse Restaurant in the Red Lion Hotel drew the biggest audience ever for such a meeting, said Dave Neupert, the chamber’s president — more than 120 people.
They came to hear what Harbor-Works planned to do with the 75-acre Rayonier site, where 600 people worked until the mill closed in 1997.
‘Organizational foundation’
Any such proposal to acquire the site is premature, Haguewood said, while the development authority first constructs “a strong organizational foundation that is built for long-term success.”
Harbor-Works also intends to be “conservative with presentations and communications until there is a solid foundation and a clear direction,” he said.
Board meetings start at 2:30 p.m. the first Wednesday of each month in the conference room of the Vern Burton Center, 308 E. Fourth St.
The development authority’s first big goal is to hire a permanent executive director from among the three finalists of 18 applicants for the job.
Board members hope to make their choice by Jan. 1, Haguewood said.
After that, he said, the agency must determine the borders of the old mill property and decide how badly it is contaminated by dioxins left from its decades of operations.
That task — despite the intervening 12 years of study and testing — may take 12 months to 18 months, according to Haguewood.
Only then can Harbor-Works conduct feasibility studies and search for a potential tenant, strike an agreement with Rayonier and with state and federal agencies about who must play for what parts of the cleanup, and get the property ready to lease or sell, he said.
Questions and answers
Along the way will come a “community symposium where all stakeholders will be welcome to come and have a discussion.”
Campbell and Haguewood also fielded questions from the capacity audience that included:
•SEnSWhy should Harbor-Works assume responsibility for pollution created by Rayonier?
Campbell said a decade of discussion hadn’t produced a solution, and that the development authority could tap state funds that would pay up to half of the cleanup costs.
•SEnSIs the development authority limited to the Rayonier site or can it take on cleaning up all Port Angeles Harbor?
The latter, according to Campbell.
•SEnSCould the Rayonier property become the new home port of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration?
Possibly, said Haguewood, but the effort to lure NOAA to Port Angeles is not tied to Harbor-Works, and Harbor-Works cannot clean up the site in time for NOAA’s 2011 move.
•SEnSWas Harbor-Works’ creation “railroaded through behind closed doors,” especially ignoring the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe whose ancestral village of Y’innes underlies some of the 75 acres?
Campbell didn’t answer the closed-door part of the question but said that tribal remains and artifacts will be considered and the tribe’s concurrence with development plans is a must.
•SEnSWhat schedule do organizers envision for redevelopment?
That’s hard to predict, Campbell said, but citizens already have said they want public access to the waterfront, hiking/biking trails and a cleanup of the Ennis Creek corridor.
The Harbor-Works Development Authority is independent of — yet the ultimate responsibility of — the city of Port Angeles and Port of Port Angeles that created it, Campbell added.
It is obligated to repay with interest any public funds it spends, he said.
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Reporter Jim Casey can be reached at 360-417-3538 or at jim.casey@peninsuladailynews.com.
County antes for NOAA effort
CLALLAM COUNTY COMMISSIONERS today will join a three-government effort to attract the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to Port Angeles.
They agreed Monday to add no more than $25,000 to the $50,000 put up each by the city of Port Angeles and Port of Port Angeles.
The resulting $125,000 will pay a consultant to research community resources like schools and health care, said County Administrator Jim Jones, and present them to the agency in a “first-class proposal.”
NOAA’s deadline is Jan. 25.
The city, port and county also must hire a Washington, D.C., lobbyist to persuade Congress that Port Angeles should be NOAA’s new home port, Jones said.
NOAA expects to move its research ships and 200 jobs from Lake Union in Seattle by May 2011.
That would rule out the agency’s initially using the Rayonier site, although NOAA could be phased onto those 75 acres, Jones said.
Environmental activist Darlene Schanfeld asked commissioners to rule out the Rayonier site because a NOAA facility would close it to public access.
The Port’s preferred locations include Terminal 3 just west of Westport Shipyard and Terminal 7 just east of Tse-whit-zen.
