Clarifying objectives
Seattle Times
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Letters to the Editor
“Clean, green focus will help Port step up to competition” [Port of Seattle CEO Tay Yoshitani guest commentary, Aug. 2] is encouraging. For its first time, the Port is using its berthing agreements to advance environmental objectives by having cruise ships either plug in or use low-sulfur fuels when docked. Cruise lines have also agreed not to dump sewage sludge in the Olympic Coast Sanctuary.
Such positive objectives, including proposed use of low-sulfur fuels in containerships at berth, need to be matched with verification. The greater pollution generated while ships transit the 140 miles of Greater Puget Sound to the dock have gone unaddressed.
The Port is also missing an opportunity to clean up Puget Sound while dredging its terminals for bigger ships. The Port is proposing to dump 59,000 cubic yards of sediment, including nine pounds of PCBs from the Duwamish River Superfund site, back into Elliott Bay.
If the Port chose instead to dispose of one-third of the sediments from Terminal 30 upland, it could prevent 77 percent of the PCBs from recontaminating Puget Sound, which is home to the most-polluted whales in the world.
It’s time the Port became a full partner in this effort.
— Fred Felleman, Friends of the Earth, Seattle
Leave a Reply