Concerned citizens in Thurston County ask you to end log shipping as soon as possible at the Marine Terminal. We want Port resources to be used for the benefit of the public, and we want our Commissioners to be responsible environmental stewards for the health of our county and future generations.

The log storage area, which occupies most of the Marine Terminal on the Port peninsula north of the Farmer’s Market in downtown Olympia, is currently leased by the Weyerhaeuser Company to ship raw logs from Northwest forests to Japan, China and Korea. These exports comprise the vast majority of the Port’s shipments. We are asking Port Commissioners not to renew the lease with Weyerhaeuser for the following reasons:

1.) The Port of Olympia loses money shipping logs at the Marine Terminal every year. Between one and two million dollars of tax revenue is required every year from Thurston County taxpayers to make up the loss. Our tax dollars continue to subsidize Weyerhaeuser, a multimillion-dollar international corporation.

2.) The 24-acre log storage area takes up valuable space on the waterfront in downtown Olympia that, instead, could directly benefit our growing population with open space for recreation. It could provide access for activities such as sailing, kayaking, a cohesive waterfront trail, and limited commercial development.

3.) Log shipping requires continuous costly dredging. In order to maintain a navigable channel for deep-hulled ships, like the ones used to export logs to Asia, regular dredging is required. Dredging not only burdens taxpayers with further subsidies into the indefinite future, it may stir up dangerous toxins from past pollution that threaten human health and the marine environment.

4.) If logs were no longer shipped from the Port of Olympia, pollution from log truck traffic would be eliminated, thereby protecting air quality and public health.

Thurston County residents ask you to end log shipping at the Port of Olympia as soon as possible.