Bellingham, Whatcom County seek to mitigate noise coming from metal recycler at the port
Both the Bellingham City Council and Whatcom County Council are seeking ways to restrict late-night noise from a metal recycler on the waterfront and discourage the company’s planned expansion.
Bellingham Mayor Seth Fleetwood on Monday promised a presentation on the city’s noise ordinance Oct. 16, at the City Council’s next meeting.
“I’ve given direction to the legal staff to come back with options as it relates to our noise ordinance,” Fleetwood told the City Council.
“At our next meeting, you are going to be able to review those options and give direction as it relates to whether or not we want to consider amendments to our noise ordinance that would help mitigate the sounds of that operation,” he said.
Fleetwood said the possible action was in response to complaints about ABC Recycling, which last year began loading ships at the Port of Bellingham with scrap metal to be sent overseas from a shipping terminal at the south end of Cornwall Avenue.
When a ship is in port, operations continue well into the night and early morning hours, and have angered Sehome and South Hill residents and others. The booming sounds of metal dropping into cargo holds echo into residential neighborhoods and can be heard a mile away, in the Columbia neighborhood.
Councilwoman Lisa Anderson said residents have been calling 911 to report the sounds, and she asked for a noise option to be added to the city’s SeeClickFix online reporting tool, easing the burden on dispatchers for a problem that the police can’t solve in the middle of the night.
“If you’ve been living on the south side you know there have been a lot of noise concerns with activity down at the port. I think we need to have an appropriate alternative for people to be able to log their concern over a noise complaint versus calling 911,” Anderson said at Monday’s City Council meeting.
Currently, the MV Autumn Sea is at the Port of Bellingham, being loaded with 27,500 metric tons of recycled iron and steel bound for India, where it will be melted and made into new products, ABC Recycling spokesman Riley Sweeney told The Bellingham Herald in an email.
Night operations continue
“This is the fourth ship we have loaded here in Bellingham and we continue to improve our operations each loading to mitigate the impacts on the neighborhood. These improvements include removing the backup alarms on our loading trucks and increasing the size of our sound wall near the dock,” Sweeney told The Herald.
To get the Autumn Sea loaded in seven days, a crew of 60 union longshore and warehouse employees are working from 8 a.m. to 2:30 a.m., along with 10 local ABC workers, he said.
“I know a few residents who live near the Port’s industrial shipping facility have voiced their concerns. We want everyone to know that we hear them and will continue to refine our operations while providing family wage jobs right here in Bellingham,” Sweeney said.
County Council hearing
Also this week, the Whatcom County Council defeated a proposed emergency ordinance aimed at pausing new applications for heavy industry in a city’s urban growth area.
County Council members Todd Donovan and Barry Buchanan sought the measure, which was defeated 4-3 on Tuesday, because an emergency ordinance requires a supermajority of five votes.
“The fact that we already have heavy industry going on inside of these zones, next to these residential areas, which is basically the only claim here for an emergency, I have a hard time seeing that it fits the bill to be an emergency ordinance,” Councilman Ben Elenbaas said.
Instead, the proposed ban was added to the agenda for a public hearing at the County Council’s Oct. 10 meeting.
Councilman Tyler Byrd joined Elenbaas and Councilwoman Kathy Kershner in voting against considering the ban as an emergency measure or in two weeks.
Whatcom County’s proposed measure doesn’t specifically mention ABC, which wants to build a metal shredder and recycling facility near the Lehigh Northwest Concrete factory off Marine Drive, just north of the Bellingham city limits.
ABC Recycling owns the site of the proposed development, valued at more than $3 million.
“This is revolving around one very specific circumstance related to metal recycling. It’s the only application that any of us are aware of that might be coming down the pipe. It’s one where some community members are upset about,” Byrd said at Tuesday’s County Council meeting.
Sweeney said ABC welcomes “an ongoing conversation with the community” about its proposed Marine Drive facility.
”We look forward to continuing to articulate the benefits of a recycling facility in Bellingham that is environmentally sound, safe and provides family-wage, green-collar jobs. Our work to recycle consumer and industrial metals reduces our carbon impact by diverting materials from the landfill and giving them new life as construction materials for the affordable housing and new businesses of tomorrow,” Sweeney said.
This story was originally published September 30, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
