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 be used for the benefit of the public and that Commissioners are responsible environmental stewards and protect the health of future generations.
The log storage area, roughly 24.5 acres, occupies most of the Marine Terminal on the Port peninsula north of the Farmer’s Market in downtown Olympia and is currently leased by the Weyerhaeuser Company to ship raw logs from Northwest forests to Japan, China and Korea. These exports comprise the vast majority of the Port’s shipments. We are asking Port Commissioners not to renew the lease with Weyerhaeuser past 2030, when the final 5-year renewal period has been completed. The reasons for not renewing the lease are as follows:
- 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.
- The 24-acre log storage area takes up valuable space on the waterfront in downtown Olympia that, instead, could directly benefit our growing population with open space. It could provide access for activities such as sailing, kayaking, a cohesive waterfront trail, and limited commercial development, all of which may have limited life spans due to sea level rise.
- 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 stir up dangerous toxins from past pollution that threaten human health and the marine environment.
- 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.
If you are a Thurston County resident, please sign the
Petition to end log shipping at the Port of Olympia.
Carla Wulfsberg is a member of the Port committee for Olympia Indivisible
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