Months after paying $48.5 million for the property, the Port of Vancouver opened Terminal 5 last week at the former site of an Evergreen Aluminum smelter and extrusion plant on the Columbia River.
Sen. Patty Murray, Sen. Maria Cantwell and Rep. Brian Baird (all D-Wash.) attended the dedication ceremony and groundbreaking of a new rail facility on the terminal grounds. Also on hand were Mayor Royce Pollard, Port Commission President Nancy Baker and John Lanigan, executive vice president of BNSF Railway Company.
"This is a big day for Southwest Washington," Murray said. "As the Port of Vancouver expands, so do job opportunities across the area. From opening a new terminal to improving rail mobility, the Port of Vancouver is laying the groundwork for the region's economic comeback."
The rail extension to the new Terminal 5 is part of the larger $137 million West Vancouver Freight Access Project, a massive undertaking by the Port and the Washington State Department of Transportation meant to relieve freight congestion, increase capacity and maintain the Port's competitive edge with Portland's facilities across the Columbia River.
The access project, which broke ground in 2008, has already received over $2.5 million in federal stimulus money. Vancouver construction firm Nutter Corp. and Yacolt-based Rotschy, Inc. have already completed the beginning phases of the project last November.
In addition to the economic benefits of the new terminal, many attendees at last Thursday's dedication and groundbreaking also touted the project's environmental benefits.
"Step one was protecting the river and people near the site from toxic waste," said Jay Manning, director of the Washington State Department of Ecology. "Step two was redevelopment to allow new economic use. The fact that Terminal 5 is now an important cargo handling site for wind turbines is an added bonus."
The carting and shipping of wind turbines presents a huge opportunity for the Port, which projects nearly 100,000 Longshore work hours on wind energy cargo this year, up from 24,000 hours in 2008.
Port crews are already handling wind energy cargo using cranes with the capacity to lift 140 metric tons, the equivalent of two space shuttles, according to the Port.
The smelter owned by Evergreen Aluminum, formerly known as Alcoa, at one time took up close to 1,000 acres along the Columbia River. At its height, the facility employed about 1,600, a number that dwindled down through the early 2000s.
While it remained unclear whether the new Terminal 5 would ever come close to employing as many people as the former Evergreen Aluminum smelting facility – currently 20-50 workers handle wind energy cargo at the facility – Sen. Murray hailed the Port for being a "consistent job creator" for the region.
According to numbers supplied by the Port of Vancouver, the combined facilities provide $1.6 billion in regional economic benefits and support an estimated 15,580 jobs.
