Join RE Sources, Department of Ecology, and Port of Bellingham along the Bellingham waterfront for a walking tour to get familiar with this 3.3 acre contaminated cleanup site, Weldcraft Steel & Marine. Between 1946 and 2000, Weldcraft Steel and Marine operated on the property. Various activities took place including boat construction, repair, and maintenance, leaving pollutants in the soil, groundwater, and sediments — such as petroleum hydrocarbons, metals, and volatile organic compounds. Now, a cleanup plan is under development to restore the site. Check out this fact sheet on the site for more details.
Weldcraft Steel tour details
Thursday, July 17th from 12:00–1:30pm
2652 N Harbor Loop Drive, Bellingham (map)
Meet in the parking lot behind LFS Marine. Look for the blue tent.
Staff from Ecology, the Port, and RE Sources will be there to answer questions, guide you through the site’s cleanup process, and prepare you for the public comment period on the site’s draft Cleanup Action Plan.
Public comments are accepted from June 30th to July 30th. Details on Ecology’s website.
Background: An industrial history on Whatcom’s waterfronts
The Bellingham Waterfront was a seat of industrial activity for more than 100 years, an era that culminated with the closure of the Georgia-Pacific tissue mill in 2007. Industries left behind a legacy of toxic pollutants in the soil, sediment, and water — including mercury, nickel, dioxins, petroleum byproducts, and more. The shoreline was also physically altered by armoring off beaches, dredging up sediment, and filling in parts of the natural shoreline to build on.
See the Department of Ecology’s map of the 12 contaminated sites in Bellingham Bay and where each one is in the Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA) cleanup process. You can see what cleanup sites are near you with Ecology’s searchable map tool. RE Sources also created a printable map with an overview of the cleanup process and sites.
Learn more about the MTCA cleanup process!
Until very recently, this industrial development also resulted in the central waterfront area being largely off-limits to the public for decades, despite the fact that the City and Port of Bellingham currently own the land. While it’s easy to feel separated from this legacy, it affects places Whatcom residents know and love. Even local favorite Boulevard Park was home to a coal-fired gas plant that left heavy metals and fossil fuel byproducts.
The toxic contamination and heavily modified shoreline make the waterfront hazardous to young salmon, which need clean, protected, and connected nearshore habitat to grow and make it to the open ocean. The decline of eelgrass beds and gravel beaches which act as nurseries for forage fish (which salmon need to eat) have put an additional stress on our dwindling salmon populations.
Bellingham’s waterfront gives our community a unique opportunity to make something positive from former industrial areas. As we’ve seen from the completed cleanup at Waypoint Park in 2018 — complete with some young salmon habitat, new businesses, and a playground — it can be done.
This material is funded through a Public Participation Grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology. Ecology reviewed the content for grant consistency but does not necessarily endorse it.