SHIPBREAKING - 2006
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Citizens respond in letters to the editor of the Newport News-Times
January 4, 2006
Consider the ultimate cost
We must ask ourselves not only what Bay Bridge would bring to our area, but what the ultimate cost will be to our community.
They will bring approximately 100 jobs. The five top positions will be filled by persons they bring with them. So this means only the lesser jobs are to be filled by "locals." These jobs will pay $10 an hour to start, which apparently the company believes is a living wage. How does a family pay rent, utilities, buy groceries and clothing on $10 an hour?
There is a lot of talk that the addition of Bay Bridge would ensure dredging of our bay continues. This is false and misleading. We all know Bay Bridge is a private company. The federal government is in no way obligated to dredge our bay to accommodate them. Don't forget, once Bay Bridge is sold a ship, the federal government is no longer responsible for that ship, and certainly not for guaranteeing its arrival in Newport. It seems dredging is more likely to continue in order to accommodate the large NOAA ships entering our bay.
Let's think about what Newport stands to lose if there is even the hint of a small environmental "incident." Two of our largest, and highest paying enterprises may very well be forced to shut down. These are the Hatfield Marine Science Center and the Oregon Coast Aquarium.
The retired Hatfield director, who spoke at a public meeting, stated the Hatfield center currently receives $34 million a year from the federal government, which is dependent on the waters being held to certain standards for research. If that money is gone, and Hatfield leaves, we will lose many more than 100 truly high paying jobs. The domino effect will then begin.
The aquarium surely won't be able to stay in business, the tourists and busloads of school children will no longer come. Our fishing industry would be jeopardized, including the jobs in the processing plants on the bayfront. Who will eat at the restaurants on the bayfront, who will want to shop in our stores? What will become of the oyster farm? Will tourists come to our bay, pay to stay in our RV parks and hotels/motels, dock their boats at our public marina, pay to launch their boats and buy fuel and snacks, if they're afraid to eat the crab from our bay? What about the homeowners on the bay? It costs lots of extra tax dollars to live on the bay. If property values plummet, those tax dollars will no longer be justified, costing the city revenue.
Most importantly, one of the most beautiful places on the planet could very well be destroyed for 100 $10- to $20-an-hour jobs.
The company has made many promises they're "green," but asbestos and PCBs will still be introduced into our bay.
The ships are currently in San Francisco. If ship breaking is such a terrific business, and promises such wonderful jobs, why doesn't San Francisco want Bay Bridge there?
Ultimately, we must also ask ourselves about the disturbing secrecy that has brought us so close to having this industry in our backyard. When a government, whether it be local, state or federal, does not trust the citizenry to make intelligent, and informed decisions, we are all in danger of losing what makes this the best country in the world in which to live.
Dean and Jean Hendrickson
Newport
January 4, 2006
Importance of what Bay Bridge brings
The proposal to put a marine salvage recycling company in the Port of Newport is about important jobs. More than 100 family wage jobs -- those are important.
The jobs at businesses that will sell things to Bay Bridge and their employees -- those are important.
Construction jobs building Bay Bridge and then renovating the fishing boat work dock and cargo terminal -- those are important.
The fishing vessel, deckhand and cargo handling jobs with new work space and better facilities -- those are important.
The jobs at the EPA and Hatfield Marine Science Center -- working together with Bay Bridge and the port to protect, study and maybe even improve the estuary -- those are important.
The teachers, firefighters, grocery checkers, computer sales people, hotel workers -- all those jobs that depend on a healthy economy -- those are important, too.
This Bay Bridge opportunity is about all of us doing a good job for our community, our neighbors and our kids.
Neal Henning
Newport
January 6, 2005
Don't just say 'no'
Have you noticed how easy it is to write negative letters to the editor, criticizing people for trying to do something? Maybe those letter writers really feel they're doing something productive, who knows.
It would be a lot more productive to stop just saying "no" to every new thing that happens, every new opportunity we should take a look at for our community - because we don't get that many opportunities here - and think and write letters about how things could work, might work.
Bay Bridge shipbreaking is one really good example. There are people running around hollering "invasive species" because it sounds scary and what they want to do is scare people about this company. Many of these same people wouldn't have known what "invasive species" were three weeks ago if they got run over by one.
Invasive species brought in on boat hulls is nothing new. It happens and it's a concern in an estuary like ours, with oyster farming and biologic significance in species and research. Invasive species are really a concern when you don'' know where they came from, where the boast has been.
With Bay Bridge, we would know exactly where they've been. Heck, the boat hulls could even be checked and tested before they came up here. But that would mean we'd know some facts and be able to deal with the situation, while still creating more jobs and economic stimulus in the community. We wouldn't want to do that if what we really like doing is running around scaring people.
No one is saying you have to want Bay Bridge to come here with employment, money to spend and an excellent safety environmental track record. But if you're opposed, at least have a look at the benefits and things that are within our control to prevent and monitor. Don't just say "no;" no never did anything.
Dee Arment
Siletz
January 11, 2006
Something better for Yaquina Bay
Where were their minds when the promoters came up with the idea of allowing Bay Bridge to operate a shipbreaking yard in Yaquina Bay? Off hand I can't think of anything worse to put on the bay except perhaps an oil refinery. Aren't there better options?
Yaquina Bay and its surroundings were the major reason my wife and I moved to Lincoln County nine years ago. We believe it's one of the most beautiful places we've ever seen. Seldom do we drive north across the bridge without one of us commenting about how beautiful the bay is. After all this time we still get a lot of enjoyment driving Bay Boulevard from the Coast Guard Station to Toledo. We hate to see that change.
During the 25 years I worked as a marine insurance underwriter, and while on active service in the Navy I had plenty of opportunities to visit shipyards and shipbreaking yards. Without exception none of these were "green" - and none did anything to benefit their surroundings.
Last year I visited the bayfront in Baltimore, Md. and couldn't believe how much it's changed. It's a classic example of what port cities can do to economically develop and at the same time beautify their communities.
Before, Baltimore had two major shipyards close to the downtown area - one of them right next door to Fort McHenry, a national monument. I served on ships undergoing repairs in both of these yards and from my own experience I would say that Newport doesn't want to have anything like them or what they bring with them.
Today Baltimore is a different story. You can, if you want, take a light rail from the airport to the baseball field, museums, a modernized downtown and a waterfront that includes an incredible aquarium and an attractive thriving tourist area.
Frankly I can't imagine how, having seen Bay Bridge's operation in Virginia, the Port of Newport's general manager would even think of having them in Yaquina Bay. Surely the port and the chamber of commerce can come up with something better.
George Watrous
Waldport
January 20, 2006
Don't gamble with bay
The future of Oregon's coast will become a game of chance if shipbreaking is allowed in Newport.
One short-term winner may be the Port of Newport -- the "Mission Statement" on their website talks about maximizing their financial returns, and the full economic development potential of Yaquina Bay.
The losers will be many local residents. It would only take one small mistake to create another New Carrisa-style shipwreck, filled with toxic waste, while towing the huge Ghost Fleet ships from their current "graveyard" in California, up here to Oregon.
The many ships in the Ghost Fleet contain toxic waste and many hazardous materials and chemicals, in addition to non-native invasive species on the ships' hulls. So the potential for impending disaster is both environmental and biological ... And the damage to our aquarium ... immeasurable.
The owner of the company wanting to bring California's ghost fleet to Oregon is based in India. There are stretches of shoreline in India that have been polluted beyond all hope because of their shipbreaking industry. We can't allow this India-based company to make the Oregon coastline their dumping ground for out-of-state toxic waste.
The Port of Newport says they have a zero tolerance policy toward environmental impact, but chances are ... a negative impact will naturally occur ... due to the inherently complicated and dirty processes of shipbreaking. Once our tourism image is stained ... the effects will hurt our economy for years to come, both locally, and statewide.
The risks aren't worth the promised rewards of a few jobs. Let's not underestimate the dangers of shipbreaking. They are real ... and the effects could harm us for years or decades to come. In the long run, if we allow shipbreaking on Yaquina Bay, we will all be the losers. That's a bad gamble.
Joan Janoe and Brian Benson
Waldport
January 20, 2006
Conservation district opposes shipbreaking
As an organization with standing in Lincoln County to coordinate on land and water management issues, the Lincoln Soil and Water Conservation District strongly opposes any attempt to allow shipbreaking in the Yaquina estuary.
In terms of both economic and social value, estuaries are among the most valuable of the county's natural resources. Because the delicate balance and operation of an estuary is dependent on the interrelationships of complex natural processes, estuaries represent a very fragile environment. Seemingly modest alterations to the processes that govern them can cause major changes in the biophysical character.
For this reason, the potential for resource degradation as a result of competing uses is high. Since estuaries have such high economic and social values, it is of critical importance to establish estuarine management practices that will provide for development of estuarine-dependent resources in a manner compatible with conservation and enhancement of estuarine environments.
It is impossible to provide irrefutable evidence that ship breaking would cause no detrimental impact on natural estuarine resources. Shipbreaking operations would expose workers and the estuary to a wide range of hazards. These include, but are not limited to, the following: invasive species, tributyl tin (TBT anti-fouling paint), asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), lead, and other hazardous materials and chemicals.
A passage in the Port of Newport's "Port and Starboard" newsletter this month indicates, "In keeping with the Port of Newport's mission statement, the key elements that the commission is considering in looking at Bay Bridge's proposal is the economic stimulus that would come from the family-wage jobs they would bring to the community, and the possibility that the port would have more leverage in lobbying for federal dredging dollars because of the cargo opportunities that Bay Bridge would provide."
By focusing so narrowly on the potential upside of "family-wage" jobs and ignoring the realities of the ship breaking industry, the port commission does a disservice to its constituents and the Yaquina Estuary upon which so many depend for their economic and aesthetic well being. We strongly urge the commission to weigh all the issues and vote "no." Once the genie is out of the bottle, there is no putting it back in.
Robert van Creveld, Chairman
Lincoln Soil and Water Conservation District
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State job chase hit unseen rocks
In their zeal to recruit a ship-breaking firm, Oregon officials failed to anticipate a public environmental outcry
by Peter Sleeth
January 29, 2006
The Oregonian
It was nicknamed "Project Glory" by state economic development officials, a plan to bring as many as 125 much-needed industrial jobs to the Oregon Coast with an aggressive sales campaign and financial offers of $200,000 or more to the out-of-state company.
But Oregon's recruiters were taken aback by an onslaught of public challenges over apparently unexamined environmental issues posed by the project, documents obtained by The Oregonian show.
A series of e-mails gained under a public-records request shows state officials had negotiated for months to bring a ship-breaking company to Newport's Yaquina Bay only to have the project start to crumble after the first public meeting.
As opposition, combined with newspaper stories and editorials, began to mount, the state began showing Bay Bridge Enterprises other locations -- at least two in the midst of a federal Superfund site at Portland harbor.
Gov. Ted Kulongoski made new business recruitment a top priority in his first term. A spokeswoman for his office defended the recruitment of Bay Bridge Enterprises to a Newport site.
"There is a public process for a reason. I don't think we were necessarily caught off guard," said Anna Richter-Taylor. "That is why there are public meetings."
Mike Salsgiver, acting director of the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department, said his agency was surprised by concerns over invasive marine species attached to the hulls of ships that would be towed to Oregon for salvage. But he maintained that gauging public opinion is not part of the state's job when it recruits a company for a particular location. Rather, that is the job of local governments -- and opposition arose in public meetings as it should have.
The saga of recruiting a ship-breaker, however, points up the risks and rewards involved in the state's multi-layered process for seeking new employers. Newport's failure raises the stakes for locating the company -- and its potential 125 jobs -- elsewhere in Oregon.
Virginia-based Bay Bridge, which specializes in taking apart old ships from government fleets, wants to open a ship-breaking yard in Oregon or Washington. A sizable fleet sits in Suisun Bay, near San Francisco, and Bay Bridge would tow those ships here to take them apart and sell the steel for scrap. It is so expensive and dirty an operation that the federal government pays to have the ships taken off its hands, and desperately seeks a West Coast site for operation.
A mission of the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department is to bring in new jobs. Last fall, department officials working with the governor's office began showing Bay Bridge potential sites. From August through November, they negotiated with Bay Bridge, and by October had whittled the sites down to one in Astoria and one in Newport. By November, however, Newport was the leading candidate, with a site that the Port of Newport had available.
State officials hoped that during the regular Port meeting of Nov. 22, the Port would sign a letter of intent with Bay Bridge to do business. The Port had just announced the possibility of bringing Bay Bridge to Newport five days earlier.
But the furor that erupted from that first public hearing began to unravel such plans.
During a Nov. 22 public meeting in Newport, vocal opponents unexpectedly took control of the meeting, said one e-mail from Bob Warren, an official with the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department. The e-mail was dated Nov. 23 and addressed to several people, including Salsgiver.
"The Port commissioners totally lost control of the meeting, and it turned into a free-for-all," Warren wrote. "And it went on and on and on. The client heard and saw virtually no local support . . . Port Manager Don Mann tells me he still thinks the project is doable. I have my doubts based on what I saw and heard last night."
Salsgiver said last week that the public opposition came out in an appropriate forum and that despite his department's work in recruiting the company, public opposition was not his department's to gauge.
"This is a very typical process that gained a degree of opposition that even caught local officials by surprise," he said. "The local temperature-taking is frankly up to them."
Environmental worries were paramount to opponents. Ships sent to scrap are frequently loaded with asbestos insulation, toxic chemicals and fuels. And it is believed the ships of Suisun Bay could carry exotic marine species that could harm local rivers and bays.
While state officials were aware of most environmental risks, no one, it appears from the e-mail record, had researched the risk from exotic marine species. After a second public hearing Dec. 6, Warren again sent an e-mail to colleagues, stating that scientists from Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center had spoken of the threat of invasive species. Still, Warren wrote that it was urgent an agreement be signed that night at a second meeting.
"Tonight is another public meeting as well as a decision point for the Port. The Port will vote to sign a letter of intent with Bay Bridge to move ahead with the project. If they do not vote to approve tonight, Newport will be out of the game," Warren wrote.
Newport signed no letter of intent that night. A spokeswoman for the economic development department said her agency was not responsible for the invasive-species issue. Rather, she said, the state Department of Environmental Quality had that responsibility.
But Mike Wolf, an economic revitalization representative with the DEQ, said that it was not his department's regulatory responsibility to deal with invasive species. His agency did not research the issue for the economic development department. The DEQ, he said, did not even hear of the issue until a public outcry in December over invasive species.
"I think the public raised those concerns at that point in time," Wolf said last week. "That's not an issue we get involved with."
Salsgiver said that although he was not intimately involved in the recruitment, he never saw any word in e-mails about invasive species.
"The invasive species did not come up anywhere in any e-mail I saw on the project," he said. "It is through the vetting process you would hope that agencies or entities would bring that to our attention. To my knowledge that did not happen."
By Dec. 14, Warren was urging the Port of Newport to get an active publicity campaign going to counter negative publicity about the project. At that time, Bay Bridge was still considering Newport, while looking at other sites on the coast and in Portland.
"We are getting blindsided on this, and we need to do something about it," Warren wrote.
The next day, more than three weeks after the public announcement of the project, Warren, in an e-mail copied to a member of Kulongoski's staff, wrote that he had talked with another staff member in the governor's office about invasive species.
"She indicated that the only real concern on Bay Bridge with regard to environmental issues is the invasive-species issue," he wrote. "A proactive approach to this issue is essential."
By Dec. 22, another economic development staff member, Tom Nelson, had asked a Portland-based maritime consultant for his opinion on the Bay Bridge job proposal. David A. Cheramy, of Maritime Consulting International, gave them some frank news: The ships should be dismantled in California, he argued, and if done in Oregon, in dry docks on Swan Island or at an existing facility in Portland owned by Schnitzer Steel. Cheramy suggested the economic development department should have done its research earlier.
"There needed to be more homework done on this opportunity before bringing it to the public's attention. All of the technical and environmental issues should have been considered and addressed beforehand," he wrote. "This brouhaha has made it difficult for anyone who wants to do this work on the U.S. West Coast. If it gets that far, the lawyers will love it."
By the end of the month, state officials were steering Bay Bridge toward the Portland area. A spokesman for Bay Bridge said last week that the metro area is now the most likely site for their operations.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1138429971196030.xml&coll=7
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Newport's Port rejects plans to scrap ships
by Lori Tobias
January 25, 2006
The Oregonian
NEWPORT -- Yaquina Bay won't become the West Coast's only shipbreaking yard.
To the delight of many in a crowd of about 200 people, the Port of Newport's five commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to reject a proposal by a Virginia-based company to tow as many as 60 aging government ships to the central coast bay for salvage.
The decision brought a standing ovation and cheers from residents who fought for more than two months to derail the plan.
"I am so delighted," said John Crawford, who lives on the bay. "It's hard to talk about without choking up. We thought we were in risk of losing our pristine bay."
After the vote, Commissioner Mark Fisher addressed the jubilant gathering with some stern words about the tenor of the opposition campaign, led by a group called the Friends of Yaquina Bay.
"I know you are very happy because what you believe shouldn't happen isn't going to happen," Fisher said. "A lot of you were not very nice. You didn't give us a chance to do our job before you began throwing mud on us. I believe we would have reached this same decision with or without your input. Next time, I hope you will be a little nicer."
Posters and fliers against the plan sprung up around this town of about 10,000. Earlier this week, a critic of the project showed a videotape on the hazards of shipbreaking at the Performing Arts Center. Members of the Friends of Yaquina Bay carried signs to Tuesday's meeting, reading in red lettering: "No To Shipbreaking."
Most of their objections centered on concerns that the operation would pollute the bay and introduce invasive species. But in the end, economics doomed the project, said Port Director Don Mann.
Bay Bridge Enterprises hoped to make Newport the only West Coast recycling yard for retired naval and merchant ships currently anchored in Suisun Bay near San Francisco. The deteriorating ships would be towed north to be dismantled and sold for scrap metal. Bay Bridge officials said labor costs were too high in California to do the work there.
The Port would have leased land to Bay Bridge and wanted the company to pay more for site development, dredging and other work that probably would have pushed back the operation to next year, Mann said.
"Investment costs for a startup here at the Port are higher for the company than first anticipated," he said. "The company knows now that what they were willing to invest, and these higher costs, are not in their plans."
Bay Bridge President Mike Dunavant earlier said he planned to invest $3.9 million in Newport for startup costs. Mann didn't say how much more the Port demands would have raised the price tag.
The Port director insisted that the Port could have addressed the environmental concerns and said the bay isn't as clean as many claim, but the financial concerns were too great to overcome.
"Even though the company checked out as being a good sound business and has proven to be a safe and environmentally friendly company, our continued work toward developing the feasibility of this project had led port staff to conclude that it does not seem to fit our test of a good business match and investment for the Port of Newport," Mann said.
The Port and Bay Bridge began discussions in October and publicly acknowledged the project in November. Opposition quickly built and residents at a town hall meeting in December spilled into the hallways at a conference room set up for 200 people.
Though most of those gathered last month criticized the plan, it wasn't without support. Bay Bridge won a core of backers with a promise of 125 new jobs, paying an average of $20 an hour in an area with higher-than-average unemployment.
But opponents keyed in on environmental risks, noting the ships are loaded with hazardous materials including asbestos and diesel fuel, and their hulls can be covered with exotic marine species.
Damage to the bay could harm the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport and the nearby Hatfield Marine Science Center as well as the fishing, crabbing and shrimp industries, they argued.
Where Bay Bridge goes from here is unclear. Company officials couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday night.
Dunavant has said he had seven sites to evaluate in Oregon and Washington. In addition to Yaquina Bay, they included at least one site in Coos Bay and another at Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River. Bay Bridge officials also looked at one site at the Port of Portland.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1138161325223670.xml&coll=7
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No ship-breaking in Yaquina Bay
An economy relying on environmental and scenic values is incompatible with the operation proposed at Newport
Editorial
January 12, 2006
The Oregonian
Port of Newport commissioners did exactly the right thing last month when they heeded calls to slow down their push to help a Virginia company open a ship salvaging operation in Yaquina Bay.
Now, however, perhaps as soon as next week, the port's board will decide whether to proceed with the plan. The correct decision, based on what's been learned in recent weeks, is a resounding "no."
Somewhere in Oregon, there may be an appropriate site for ship-breaking, as these controversial scrap operations are called. That site, though, clearly isn't Yaquina Bay.
The port and the company, Bay Bridge Enterprises, have made a lot of public assurances that the ship-dismantling can be done at Newport without environmental harm to Yaquina Bay. Such promises, however, are not the same thing as presenting a solid case, and the two parties have not done that.
Meanwhile, there are still too many troubling questions about the abatement of hazardous wastes that permeate the ships targeted for scrapping at Newport. In addition, The Oregonian's Peter Sleeth has disclosed that the vessels' hulls are fouled with potentially invasive species that could harm the Yaquina Bay estuary.
What might this mean for crabbing, fishing and oyster farming in the waterway? How might it affect work being done there by Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Research Center?
Bay Bridge wants to dig a slip in the harbor where about 60 deteriorating old ships from America's "ghost fleet" of naval and merchant vessels would be broken apart and sold for scrap. The ships would be towed more than 500 miles to Newport from San Francisco Bay.
Port of Newport officials are considering leasing a Yaquina Bay site to the company because of the jobs it promises -- up to 125 eventually, most hired locally. Bay Bridge says rather vaguely that these jobs would pay between $10 and $30 an hour, which makes it worth noting The Wall Street Journal's report this week on the company's Virginia ship-breaking operation: "Half the laborers at Bay Bridge are Hispanic, and most start at $8.50 an hour," the paper said.
Waiters at Mo's on the Newport waterfront make better money than that. You can't fault port officials for trying to add dozens of jobs to the local economy, but no one should lose sight of why Bay Bridge wants to tow those old wrecks halfway up the West Coast: The company seeks cheaper labor and looser environmental regulation than it can get in California.
The question for Newport: Are those 125 low-paying and possibly temporary jobs worth the risk they pose to hundreds of other jobs that depend on the environmental and scenic values of Yaquina Bay?
No, they're not worth the risk. That was the community's response at a recent public hearing, when 52 speakers opposed the proposal, against 18 who backed it.
And that has been the response from commercial fishermen, from charter boat operators, from motel and restaurant owners, from scientists at the marine research facility.
As we've said, there may be a suitable place on the Oregon coast for dismantling old ships filled with hazardous wastes, although we remain to be convinced. The one thing we do know is that the place is not Yaquina Bay.
http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1137027321161610.xml&coll=7
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Shipbreaking opposition doubles
by Joel Gallob of the News-Times
January 6, 2006
Newport News-Times
In the weeks after Bay Bridge Enterprises unveiled a shipbreaking business proposal for Yaquina Bay, a group called the Friends of Yaquina Bay Estuary came into existence to oppose the plan. As of this week, with the printing and distribution of an unsigned, detailed four-color, six-page flyer entitled, "The Ghost Fleet Newport's Toxic Tide," a second group has emerged.
Sort of.
Dr. Francis Pisciotta, an internist and gastroenterologist, and Mike Kenney, retired director of personnel for Lincoln County School District, explained this week they are now the president and vice president of a new organization. That entity, the Save Our Bay Committee, is organized as a nonprofit under Oregon law. The two are also president and vice president of the Friends of Yaquina Bay Estuary.
"Save our Bay is separate from the Friends," explained Kenny, "originally because of a lack of readiness by the Friends to reach unanimity" about some of the text in the leaflet. "I think it's coming, but until they get there, Save Our Bay will handle the communications and education."
The Friends group, added Pisciotta, will probably hold fundraisers and seek ways to "proactively cooperate with the port to bring business to the community."
The two groups, both men said, have the same leaders and overlapping membership.
The four-color leaflet, which was distributed and mailed by the new organization (The Save Our Bay Committee), had originally been worked on by the Friends of Yaquina Bay Estuary. But, explained Pisciotta, only about 80 percent of the members of the Friends group could agree on the exact text.
"There are some words, some phrases, that people do not all agree on. We wanted to have complete unanimity, complete transparency for the organization," he said. So Pisciotta, Kenney and others split off, to the extent needed to be able to get the leaflet completed and distributed.
The leaflet includes a list of dangerous chemicals likely to be found in the Ghost Fleet ships destined for salvage, and the diseases they can cause. And it highlights a survey map of the Newport harbor, with red-colored blast icons and tilted boats overlaid upon it, at four sites the authors believe represent the kinds of accidents that might occur to an old vessel towed into the harbor.
But there was no name identifying who wrote or distributed the leaflet.
When asked why the six-page leaflet was unsigned, Kenney replied, "It was a group decision and we went with it."
"It was because of the 80 percent agreement issue," said Pisciotta said.
"We both claim authorship," added Kenney.
"But everyone is 100 percent in agreement with 'No shipbreaking, Not Here, Not Now, Not Ever,'" said Pisciotta. "We've copyrighted that," he added.
Pisciotta noted that "because of this conflict and disagreement, some people think that it's personal" between shipbreaking opponents and members of the Port of Newport board. "It is not. I've spoken to them personally, and I've begged them to not sign a letter of intent. But there is this adamancy, it seems, there. So we felt our brochure was necessary to polarize and to energize the community.
"There's more coming. There will be demonstrations and protests. We'll have a 'wake at the wake' - a wake for the death of Yaquina Bay. If we have to, there will be civil disobedience. Whatever we do, it will be legal, ethical and nonviolent."
http://www.newportnewstimes.com/articles/2006/01/06/news/news06.txt
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Scrap-metal firm looking at Oregon sites
by Peter Sleeth
January 6, 2006
The Oregonian
A Virginia-based firm that wants to salvage steel from old government ships is negotiating to buy land near Coos Bay while continuing to negotiate for an industrial site in Newport.
The ship-breaking company -- Bay Bridge Enterprises -- began talking in earnest with the owner of a 216-acre parcel this week. Robin Stevenot said she may sell all or a portion of the former pulp mill site to the company. Her efforts to build a residential community at the Coos Bay site have run into stiff opposition, she said, and she is ready to sell.
"They are looking for shovel ready, and that is what I have," Stevenot said. Her property is about two miles from the mouth of Coos Bay on the southern Oregon coast.
Two telephone calls to the Virginia offices of Bay Bridge were not returned Thursday.
Bay Bridge is owned by an Indian company, Adani Global.
The possibility of a major new industrial employer on the Oregon coast brings hope and worry to the communities. High-paying jobs in the fishing and timber industries have declined precipitously in the past decade. Any new jobs -- Bay Bridge has said it expects to hire as many as 125 people at wages averaging $20 per hour -- are welcome. Yet, the potential for environmental damage from the operation is a concern, as the ships are loaded with hazardous wastes ranging from asbestos to diesel fuels. The hulls of the ships also may be covered with exotic marine species, many not native to Oregon and potentially damaging to local bays and rivers.
Opposition to the proposed business has arisen at both locations. In Newport, a group calling itself The Friends of Yaquina Bay is fighting to keep Bay Bridge out of the harbor.
In Charleston, near the Coos Bay site known locally as the Sitka Dock, the director of the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology said he is concerned the industrial activity could contaminate waters used by the institute to study marine life. His organization cycles tens of thousands of gallons of seawater a day through tanks that hold sea life for research. The institute is located about two river miles downstream from the Sitka Dock site.
"I'm absolutely not interested in seeing it happen," said Craig Young, a professor at the University of Oregon, as well as director of the university-affiliated institute. "I'd be very worried about this."
The U.S. Maritime Administration is under orders from Congress to sell the "ghost fleet" of former naval and merchant ships that sits in Suisun Bay, in the San Francisco Bay estuary. No West Coast ship-breaking yard exists, forcing the government to pay millions of dollars to have the ships towed to scrap yards in Texas. Bay Bridge wants to open an Oregon operation so it can scrap the ships and sell the steel domestically or overseas to South Korea, China or India.
The company has scouted sites from Portland to Astoria to Coos Bay in recent months, but now apparently is serious about the Newport and Coos Bay locations. The difference between the two is that one is publicly owned by the Port of Newport and the other is privately held and zoned industrial.
Bay Bridge President Mike Dunavent has said in the past he plans to invest $3.9 million in Newport for startup costs.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1136519719323050.xml&coll=7