Concerned Citizens Call for An End to Log Shipping at the Port of Olympia
By Carla Wulfsberg
Concerned community members have launched a petition to end log shipping as soon as possible at the Port of Olympia’s Marine Terminal. The goal is to ensure that Port resources and land on the Port peninsula be used to benefit the public while protecting the health and the environment for future generations of people and wildlife.
If you are a Thurston County resident, please sign the Petition to end log shipping at the Port of Olympia.
The Weyerhaeuser Company leases 24.5 acres on the Port peninsula to ship raw logs from Northwest forests to Japan, China and Korea and has been in operation at the Port of Olympia since 2005. Next year, in 2025, Weyerhaeuser’s lease at the Port is up for renewal with another 5-year option. As the project moves forward to remove the 5th Avenue dam and to restore the Deschutes estuary, it is timely that we ask Port Commissioners now to give Weyerhaeuser notice that their lease will be terminated in 2030. It is also timely, because the Port just initiated a process to produce an Integrated Master Plan to determine future uses of the Port peninsula.
- Log shipping requires continuous costly dredging. In order to maintain a navigable channel for deep-hulled ships, like the ones used to export logs to Asia, regular dredging is required. Dredging not only burdens taxpayers with further subsidies into the indefinite future, it may also stir up dangerous toxins from past industrial pollution that threaten human health and the marine environment.
- The 24-acre log storage area takes up valuable land along Olympia’s waterfront that instead could directly benefit our growing population with open space. It could provide access for activities such as sailing, kayaking, and a cohesive waterfront trail, with possibly limited commercial development.
- If logs were no longer shipped from the Port of Olympia, pollution from log truck traffic would be eliminated, thereby protecting air quality and public health.
- The Port of Olympia loses money shipping logs at the Marine Terminal every year. Between one and two million dollars of tax revenue is required every year from Thurston County taxpayers to make up the loss. Our tax dollars continue to subsidize Weyerhaeuser, a multimillion-dollar international corporation
If you are a Thurston County resident, please consider signing the petition. Thank you.
Photo credit: Log shipping, August 2024, by Carla Wulfsberg.
