As the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council considers approval of a proposed oil terminal at the Port of Vancouver, The Columbian’s Other Opinions page has taken a look at the plan from several angles. Here, we present opposing viewpoints about the terminal’s impact on Vancouver and surrounding communities.
Harris: Vancouver terminal would bring jobs, stimulate economy
The question of the proposed oil terminal is a question about vision: our vision for Southwest Washington’s future — the home our children will inherit.
Do we want to invest in energy technology or energy of the past? Growth industries or stagnant industries? Entrepreneurial local businesses or giant multinational businesses?
Let me put it this way: Close your eyes. Now, imagine the ideal Vancouver port community. Do you see the largest oil terminal in Washington, ushering an average of 360,000 barrels of crude per day through our home? Or do you see green parks, blossoming businesses and clean, vibrant (and safe) neighborhoods? If this sounds like a rhetorical question, it is.
Royce Pollard, my friend and former colleague on the Vancouver City Council, expressed his concerns over the incredible health and safety risks inherent in the proposed terminal. I could not agree more.
However, I want to speak primarily about a potentially overlooked risk of this terminal: Opportunity risk.
It’s no secret that we’re in the late planning stages of a $1.3 billion, 32-acre waterfront development project. Amounting to 10 times the investment (money ready to go into our community’s pocket) of the proposed terminal, the development plan includes a waterfront park, trails and infrastructure to support residential and commercial development.
Moreover, the development would better connect our beautiful waterfront with our promising downtown, which struggles to attract business and recreation as citizens become increasingly reluctant to utilize the deteriorating Interstate 5 Bridge and congested interchanges.
This waterfront investment — and any similar investment — will likely die if the terminal project goes forward (the leaders of the waterfront project have warned as much).
Choose a direction
Health and safety concerns, as well as the fact that a riverfront neighborhood loses its attractiveness when there’s a behemoth oil terminal next door, are sufficient to scare away investors. Moreover, countless entrepreneurial ideas for our waterfront and city would die before they ever received oxygen. Development, like life, is about trade-offs. We have to choose a direction.
There has been much focus on the health and safety risk of the proposed terminal. Rightfully so. But I contend that the opportunity risk of such an investment is equally dangerous and, potentially, toxic.
When I was a boy, Vancouver was a blue-collar manufacturing town. Today, our economy is evolving into a high-tech landscape. We are more educated. We are more entrepreneurial. And we are more economically competitive. We have a strategic advantage to lead the many emerging industries in technology.
So, if we are going to invest in energy, why not invest in wind, solar or geothermal power? All of these have seen faster demand increases than oil — and all of these are plentiful in Washington. If, however, we continue to invest in projects like the oil terminal, we will become branded as a big-oil industrial town. We will eventually see investment, salaries and property values decrease. We will be relegated to a 1960s economy in a 21st century world. We will lose the opportunity to build the thriving, vibrant community of our dreams.
So yes, health and safety risk is just ‘the tip of the iceberg.’ If we continue on course, we may find ourselves in some truly hot water.
Jim Moeller, D-Vancouver, is a State Representative from the 49th Legislative District.
