space Press Releases, News Stories

by Scott Sunde and Mike Barber, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

A cargo ship moored in Seattle for more than two daysleft port yesterday carrying 14 containers of toxic waste that were supposed to have been unloaded and temporarily stored in the city.

The ship, the Wan He, was escorted by a U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat as it left Elliott Bay about 4 p.m.

Its departure capped days of threatened lawsuits and protests by environmentalists and union workers, who warned that they would not unload the containers.

"It's a great victory for both workers and our environmental community," said Bob Hasegawa, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 174.

Dave Batker, an environmentalist who has been on the docks since the ship arrived Wednesday night, was elated.

"I'm overjoyed that it's leaving," said Batker of the Asia Pacific Environmental Exchange. "I'm overjoyed that the U.S. Department of Defense is pursuing the path that we suggested at the beginning of this."

But it is still not clear where the 14 containers, filled with electrical equipment from U.S. Army bases in Japan, would end up.

The equipment has been contaminated with PCBs. Accumulations of polychlorinated biphenyls can cause hormonal and neurological damage.

Yesterday, the U.S. Defense Department admitted that a final destination for the waste has not been found.

The department made the decision to take the waste out of Seattle after nearly a day of negotiations and apparently unsuccessful efforts to find a disposal site.

Environmental groups seemed certain the containers will be returned to Japan.

The Chinese vessel will unload its regular cargo at its next destination -- Vancouver, B.C., but the 14 containers will remain on board. Canadian authorities established a security zone around the vessel, said U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash.

After Vancouver, the ship will head back to Asia.

"It's a victory for Seattle," McDermott said. "It's not here. It's a victory for our environmental laws."

The Seattle congressman said he expected that the entire affair will be the subject of congressional hearings.

"There's going to be some inquiry," he said. "It never should have happened in the first place. We shouldn't be going through this."

Yesterday, as the ship left Terminal 18, a crowd of about 80 union members, environmentalists and onlookers stood on the north end of the dock and waved their fists in the air as the Wan He faded from view.

Many were steelworkers and their families from across the state who took time out from a fight against Kaiser Aluminum to lend support to the Teamsters and longshore workers whose actions on the docks frustrated government attempts to store the waste here.

Dave and Jeanette Reid of Spokane and their three children, Tom, 16, Brian, 15, and Sarah, 14, were among those gathered on the dock.

"They should be setting an example," their son, Tom, said of the controversial attempts by the Defense Department to move the contaminants to Canada and the United States.

"I know if I don't follow the rules, I get in trouble," he said.

As the ship left the terminal, McDermott and U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., briefed reporters from a balcony at Port of Seattle headquarters. Behind them, the Wan He glided through Elliott Bay.

From Olympia, Gov. Gary Locke issued a statement saying he was "pleased our ultimatum worked. . . . This waste has no place in the state of Washington, even on a temporary basis."

The retreat ended days of controversy.

When the Wan He left Japan in late March, the containers were supposed to be headed for Vancouver before being disposed in Ontario.

The Ontario site is owned by Trans-Cycle Industries, an Alabama company hired by the Defense Department.

Although Trans-Cycle officials believed taking the waste into Canada would be no problem because the PCB concentration is low -- less than 50 parts per million -- the Canadian government refused.

So the 14 containers came to Seattle as a port of last resort.

On Wednesday, the Defense Department reached a last-minute agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency to unload the waste in Seattle and store it here for for up to 30 days -- even though it would have gone against environmental laws.

Soon, environmentalists, labor unions and elected officials vowed they would not allow the waste to be stored here.

"They brought it to the most environmentally conscious city in the United States," McDermott said. "They thought they were going to put 14 containers of PCBs here in Seattle?"

First, longshore workers refused to unload the cargo, and warehouse workers said they feared for their safety.

An arbitrator ruled that the longshore workers would have to remove the containers, but then, the Teamsters stepped in and said they would refuse to transport the waste if it were unloaded.

As a deadline for moving the waste came and went Thursday, longshore workers removed and loaded regular cargo on the Wan He.

But the 14 containers remained.

The Sierra Club and Asia Pacific Environmental Exchange, meanwhile, provided the unions with more legal ammunition by filing notice Thursday that the two groups would sue if the waste were unloaded.

Anyone responsible could face a fine of $25,000 a day under the federal toxic-waste law.

On Thursday afternoon, McDermott, Inslee and U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., met with officials from the EPA and Defense Department in Washington, D.C.

The Defense Department wanted to get the containers off the Wan He on Thursday night, McDermott said. But by the meeting's end, the Defense Department agreed to wait a day and find a permanent spot to dispose of the waste.

"We call this a congressional-attitude adjustment," Inslee said.

Then, yesterday, the Defense Department decided to get its cargo out of Seattle.

"There were lots of concerns expressed by the state of Washington and others. That was why the decision was made," said Gerda Parr, a spokeswoman for the Defense Logistics Agency in Fort Belvoir, Va.