Coalition Statement on Port's Notice of Default to Tenants

The Working Waterfront Coalition of Whatcom County represents around 150 members s comprising several diverse sectors of maritime or waterfront-reliant businesses, organizations and individuals from Whatcom County and beyond. We advocate for the maritime trades and industries along our shores to remain vibrant, that they may continue to contribute to the economy of the region, the vitality of our county, and the health and safety of our waterfronts. We seek to represent the broader waterfront through the collective voice of all who work upon our shores.

The Coalition is aware of recent debates surrounding tenants at the Port of Bellingham’s shipping terminal and their tenant lease agreement with the Port and we are actively following the issue. Our Staff, Board of Directors, and Committees have met and discussed the issues with staff and representatives from the Port of Bellingham, Department of Ecology, Department of Natural Resources, the City of Bellingham, Whatcom County, and the tenants. We have offered insight, recommendations, and voiced support for maintaining and adhering to all local, state, and federal regulations, processes, and laws regarding environmental stewardship and safe operation.

We do not advocate for any individual business, Coalition member or not, to enjoy any special privilege or pardon from the existing laws and legal agreements that have been the result of years of collaboration with communities and agencies to ensure the health and safety of our waterways and shorelines.
We support the Port in upholding leases with the stipulations and requirements therein and hope that tenants can work collaboratively with the Port to meet the requirements and deadlines of those agreements.
We support environmental laws and policies in being fairly applied to every tenant, as this is for the protection and viability of all tenants and ensures clean and healthy waterways that support a thriving and sustainable working waterfront.
 
The Coalition has strongly advocated that County and City Councils not enact broad, reactive policies, such as generalized moratoriums or noise ordinances, that will adversely affect other waterfront businesses, or deny future businesses their fair chance to navigate the comprehensive policies and processes that have been so diligently designed to responsibly plan and preserve our waterways and waterfronts. Those reactions would not reflect impartial application of due process, nor does it allow our existing laws and regulations to be valued or exercised. Our position is not unique to this situation, but rather is one of the core tenets of our Coalition and does not reflect a position to any specific business, for or against.

Where concerns over viability for a specific business exist, the Coalition remains impartial to facilitate fair proceedings of law and lease terms. We intend our unified voice to build the waterfront up in a spirit of cooperation and continued collaboration. We inform, we connect, we give insight and advice to all our members, and we advocate for broader policies that allow our diverse members to thrive. We do not level public claims against individual businesses – to do so would undermine the collective nature of our effort.

We regret to hear a Notice of Default for any of our waterfront businesses, and continue to encourage all the relevant entities, including the Port and their tenant(s) to solve those issues as required by laws and regulations, with all the jurisprudence that any waterfront business would invoke. In the spirit of building a better waterfront, the Coalition seeks an environment of collaboration so that all businesses may grow and be supported not only in their work, but in their stewardship of our waterfronts.