ABC Recycling’s short, tumultuous time in Bellingham is coming to an end much sooner than expected. Port commissioners voted 3–0 Monday, March 25 to terminate the company’s lease on the waterfront.
Officials from the port and the Canadian recycling company “mutually agreed” to terminate the lease, ABC Recycling said in a statement following the commissioners’ vote. Port Executive Director Rob Fix said Monday morning he expected company officials to sign the agreement today.
“We value our relationship with the Port of Bellingham,” Andy Anthony, vice president of U.S. operations for ABC Recycling, said in the company’s statement. “We met with port leadership last week and had a candid conversation about the future. We mutually agreed it would be in the best interests of both parties to terminate our lease.”
The vote took place in front of a standing-room-only crowd of about 80 people at port headquarters on Roeder Avenue. Some Bellingham-area residents have been vocal critics of ABC Recycling’s scrap-metal operations at the waterfront, citing noise and water pollution problems during ship-loading operations.
Since signing a lease with the port in June 2022, ABC has been trucking rusty scrap metal to the log pond area adjacent to the shipping terminal and storing it there, for removal on export vessels every few months.
Under the terms of the termination agreement, ABC Recycling must remove all scrap metal from the log pond area, adjacent to the shipping terminal, by June 30. The company has until Sept. 30 to vacate the waterfront area. The company’s lease on office space at the shipping terminal expires on Oct. 31.
The port issued a notice of default to the Canadian recycling company on Feb. 21, giving ABC 30 days to correct environmental violations port officials claimed were due to ABC’s activities at the shipping terminal.
The notice of default required that the company adopt “best management practices” to prevent stormwater pollution at the shipping terminal.
ABC Recycling did not meet this requirement within the 30-day timeline, Fix said.
“The port’s view is that ABC has failed to comply with those terms,” Holly Stafford, an outside attorney for the port, said at the meeting. “ABC disputes that, and we figured that this would be the best resolution.”
After the Feb. 21 notice was delivered to ABC Recycling, the port added a new violation to the list, according to a staff memo to port commissioners related to Monday’s special meeting. This separate notice of default, issued March 11, said ABC was allowing metal waste to fall into Whatcom Waterway during ship-loading.
The errant metal was discovered during a dredging project this past winter, Fix said.
The company also disputed the latest allegation, according to the staff memo, but in the end the two sides agreed to end their lease.
Barry Wenger, a former senior planner with the state Department of Ecology, reminded port commissioners before their vote that ABC’s activity at the shipping terminal was the apparent reason for excessive levels of copper, zinc and lead in stormwater samples.
“After spending millions of dollars cleaning up the bay, the last thing to do is let industry come in, or any other type of use, and recontaminate,” Wenger said. “And that’s one of the problems that we have here.”
Wenger was a leading figure at Ecology during the first stages of the cleanup of Bellingham Bay, after Georgia-Pacific closed its waterfront operations.
Save The Waterfront, a grassroots group formed to oppose ABC Recycling, said the noise and pollution from the scrap-metal operations would have discouraged other types of economic development on the still mostly vacant downtown waterfront.
“We are relieved that the dangerous scrap metal storage pile will no longer be a challenge for Bellingham residents, the environment, and the opportunities planned for at the waterfront,” Save The Waterfront founder Scott Jones said in the statement.
A draft letter from the port to ABC Recycling, available with Monday’s meeting agenda, would give ABC permission to dock twice more at the shipping terminal, “for the sole purpose of removing the existing finished bulk scrap on the port’s property.”
After the commission’s vote, Bellingham resident Lisa Adam spoke about how ABC’s presence on the waterfront had galvanized the community.
“Everybody in this room has worked really hard to understand what’s going on out there,” Adam said. “I think this is a really good day for Bellingham and for the health of the bay.”
The port’s decision does not impact ABC Recycling’s plans to build a shredder northwest of Bellingham. That proposal still needs to undergo months of environmental review before it can be built.
ABC Recycling’s initial plan, however, was to ship processed scrap metal from the shredder on Marine Drive through Bellingham’s port, ABC Recycling officials have said.
ABC is “working to reassess its approach to export bulk shipping strategy, now that we will not have a facility in Bellingham,” the company statement said.
Port commissioners reasserted their commitment to bringing industrial jobs to the waterfront — albeit ones that are less polluting.
“I’m a firm believer that the waterfront and our industrial ground is an important place for work to happen,” port Commissioner Ken Bell said. “When it comes to what we do on the waterfront, it’s going to be done right. I think we made that very clear.”
This story was updated at 5:14 p.m. March 27, 2024 with a statement from Save The Waterfront.
This story was updated at 4:19 p.m. March 25 with the outcome of the Port of Bellingham commissioners meeting.
Ralph Schwartz is CDN’s local government reporter; reach him at ralphschwartz@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 107.
