In 2016, during the Seattle City Council meeting which would decide on a street vacation allowing Chris Hansen to develop land into a third arena, Debora Juarez (former District 5 Councilmember and Council President), said from the dais, “You can build 1 arena, 2 arenas, or 5 arenas, but you cannot build a deep-water port.”
Those words ring as true today as they did in 2016. The Port of Seattle is one of five major American ports on the West Coast (Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, and Tacoma), and we are a key trading and shipping port, not just for ourselves and the tons of produce and other products that move from the Pacific Northwest to the wider world, but also for bringing products into the country. The Port has approximately 2,500 direct employees and supports almost 47,000 maritime-related jobs, and overall supports 198,000 jobs. The Port also brings in almost half a billion dollars worth of revenue to our area. They are not a small partner to the City. We only have to remember the disastrous supply chain problems from 2021-2022 to understand why having a successful and connected Port is critical to the health and economy of our City, the greater Pacific Northwest, and the Nation.
Like many other industries, the Port is recovering from the effects of the pandemic. Supply chain shortages are still happening, even if in smaller amounts that are easier to overlook. Basing a decision to place housing in a maritime-industrial district when that maritime-industrial district is finally beginning to return from the pandemic won’t help our Maritime ecosystem; it can only harm it. If the Maritime ecosystem is harmed, so too are Seattle and Washington State. In Seattle’s high cost of living environment, union jobs at the Port remain a viable career path to the middle-class and long-term financial security. We don’t want to lose those jobs or the revenue generated by the work of the Port of Seattle to other ports down the West Coast.
When it comes to a proposal that will impact how the Port functions, I knew that the City Council needed to hear from Port representatives. Who knows their business better than Port commissioners and maritime and freight union representatives? It was important, therefore, to bring in the maritime and industrial communities together for a panel to discuss the legislation before the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development (GAED) Committee. The presentation can be seen on the Seattle Channel here (beginning at 1:31:00) at the February 28th Special Committee and public hearing. Please take the time to watch the Port’s presentation, where they specifically address the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) dispute. Port Commission President Hasegawa said that due to the landmark Maritime-Industrial ordinance passed in 2023 (after several years of work between the Port, union leadership, and other stakeholders), the Port did not challenge the FEIS because they did not feel it was necessary to do so – the legislation passed unanimously and addressed the concerns of all stakeholders—it was a compromise for all involved.
During that same panel, port representatives informed the Council that even now, with stadium events, the Port cannot run freight trucks through SODO on game days. That means instead of running freight trucks seven days out of seven, the Port runs freight trucks less often. That is a major adverse impact already felt in a maritime-industrial zone. Adding housing on a major truck route will absolutely place more stress on a vital part of our working City.
The Environmental Cost of Housing in SODO
When it comes to placing housing in SODO, we have two main environmental concerns: area pollution and liquefaction. These two concerns are well-documented by hazards trackers operated by both the State of Washington and the City of Seattle, which you can see for yourself.
In the State of Washington Public Health Tracker, you can see that SODO—and indeed the full maritime-industrial area around the Port—scores the highest possible risk when it comes to all environmental exposures: diesel exhaust, particulate matter 2.5, proximity to heavy traffic, toxic releases from facilities, and proximity to hazardous waste facilities, to name a few. This proposed housing is also less than a quarter of a mile from Seattle’s three superfund sites: Harbor Island, Lockheed West Seattle, and the Lower Duwamish River*.
*The Lower Duwamish River is under two separate consent decrees from the United States Department of Justice – one levied against the City of Seattle and the other against King County – to clean up the Mouth of the Duwamish River and clean up combined stormwater and sewer outflow.
What do these levels of hazards that mean for potential residents? If they get sick, will they be denied opportunities for restitution? Would they qualify for health insurance given the risks before they moved? Would they abide by any covenants about industrial impacts? The advocates for this proposal claim that the housing would include specific things like stronger air pumps and specific types of windows, but given the industrial neighborhood, I’m not sure these residents would ever be able to open their windows – can you imagine?
Here’s another environmental concern that directly stems from protection against liquefaction: For a building to be rated as ‘safe’ against liquefaction, the pylons the foundation rests on have to be sunk very deep. SODO, being built on fill and between two separate fault-lines, is at major risk of liquefaction. For any housing to be built, the land would have to be dug into as part of that construction process, and that could have potential impacts.
Seattle’s Hazards Explorer (operated by the Office of Emergency Management) tracks all kind of hazards specific to the Seattle area. When you look at SODO, you can see that SODO is at major risk for liquefaction, tsunamis, and other associated earthquake damage. SODO has historically been hit hard by some of Seattle’s most major recent earthquakes, and that’s without a major resident population like in other neighborhoods, such as Pioneer Square or the Chinatown-International District.
When it comes to liquefaction overall, another major point to note is that even if the buildings are rated safe in a major earthquake from liquefaction, the sidewalks and roads around the housing would not. Imagine someone walking their dogs during a major earthquake—they could, quite literally, be swallowed up by the earth as the water in the ground all comes together, causing massive crevasses and sinkholes.
Public Safety, Strategic Priorities, and Seattle’s Future
As a City Councilmember who swore to uphold the Seattle Municipal Code and the City Charter, public safety is my top priority. It’s named as a top priority in the City Charter. We have a better understanding of environmental and geologic challenges than we did in 1977 with Love Canal or in 1964 with the Great Alaska Quake, or even Hurricane Katrina. I will not vote to place housing—especially income-restricted affordable housing!–in an area with so many risks. I can’t mitigate those risks, but I can vote to prevent a catastrophe due to those risks.
Additionally, once we lose that maritime-industrial land, we won’t get it back. The Port and the industrial / maritime and fishing industries are in my top three strategic priorities for my work as a Councilmember – it’s vital to the long term success of the City of Seattle, and also the State of Washington for our agricultural, industrial, and other goods and services that are facilitated by the Port of Seattle.
One of the assumptions about having a Makers District in SODO is that it will also work to mitigate the public safety challenges in SODO, but there are major risks to placing housing there in addition to what’s mentioned above. SODO is a high-traffic area with major truck routes and freight, with some of the heaviest traffic across the City. That traffic is a danger to residents and pedestrians.
Impacting Factors Not Accounted For
In the next five years, Seattle Public Utilities–in conjunction with SDOT and several other entities–will be working on approximately 4 – 8 acres of property to install a massive water run off distillation project – that will cost in the billions. If this legislation passes, that means that we would have this project occurring possibly next to new housing, all while our maritime community is working to get goods in and out of Seattle. A space that is already constrained is going to be even more constrained – and the EIS wasn’t crafted to account for this. In a space where it’s already difficult to operate, things will get even more difficult as this massive water project goes in – and some want to add housing here?
Only a few blocks over, SDOT is conducting a study called: the South Holgate Street At-Grade Crossing Elimination Study. Per the study, “S Holgate Street is an arterial roadway within the Duwamish Manufacturing/Industrial Center, the Northwest region’s largest freight hub. Approximately HALF OF ALL THE FREIGHT RAIL TRAFFIC IN WASHINGTON STATE MOVES THROUGH THIS VERY DENSE AND ACTIVE FREIGHT CENTER [emphasis ours], in addition to Sounder commuter rail and Amtrak passenger rail services. Due to the intense multimodal activity in this area, S Holgate St and several other nearby crossings rank among the highest-risk at-grade rail crossings in the state. The proposed Amtrak service and infrastructure enhancements are likely to increase train traffic across the S Holgate St at-grade rail crossings over an extended daily time frame, pushing traffic onto the adjacent streets in the SODO area, producing yet-to-be-determined impacts to freight and general-purpose traffic flow. These effects are likely to shorten the existing pavement and sidewalk service life and negatively impact safety for everyone traveling through the area, especially more vulnerable travelers such as people walking, rolling, and biking.”
Just to be clear, the Council is preparing to vote on putting nearly 1,000 units of housing in this space, without the Holgate study being completed, and recognizing that if Holgate gets blocked off from normal traffic for intensified rail, all vehicular traffic will increase. Why would we do this? And why would we do this now?
The U.S. Coast Guard has long called Seattle the homeport of its’ Icebreakers, and it’s highly likely that the next Coast Guard Ice Breaker will homeport in Seattle as well. Make no mistake – we want the Coast Guard here in Seattle; they’re a part of our maritime heritage, community, and ecosystem. As the Coast Guard prepares to bring the Icebreaker fleet to Seattle, they have done work on and around the base to ensure that Base Seattle is in the best possible situation when the time comes for the infrastructure and people that come with that sort of investment. A part of this preparation has been their own EIS study which is scheduled to be delivered in April 2025 – again, wrong place and wrong time. We need to understand what the Coast Guard has to say about this area, what they’ll need to do, and how they want to partner with the City and our Port before we go constraining our (and the State and the Nation’s) lines of logistics and transport.
I am fully in support of having a Makers District. I fully support workforce housing. In the end, this is not about business versus labor or labor versus labor. This is about our culture and heritage as a maritime city, a shining city of hills by the sea. My North Star throughout is to ensure the Port is viable a hundred years from now, to be as crucial then as it is now to our City. To interpret former Council President Debora Juarez, we can and should develop affordable housing all over Seattle; we just can’t develop another deep-water port.
Thank you,
Bob
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