(UPDATED 3:33 PM, adding Foss statement on intent to appeal city DPD ‘interpretation’)

(Polar Pioneer in Port Angeles this afternoon; webcam image used with permission of PA Chamber of Commerce)
ORIGINAL REPORT, 12:24 PM: As reported here Thursday, the Port of Seattle Commission plans to discuss in public session on Tuesday what it will do about the city’s declaration that the port has to apply for a new permit to use West Seattle’s Terminal 5 for Shell’s offshore-Arctic-drilling vessels. The commission’s agenda for Tuesday meetings usually is posted by Thursday afternoon but didn’t appear on the port website until a short time ago. The T-5 lease situation is the only item on the 1 pm public agenda:

The city Department of Planning and Development’s “interpretation” of the need for a new permit was announced by the mayor on Monday; it was published on the city website yesterday, and our report also includes an open letter from Foss and local unions to the mayor, contending this action will be damaging to the city’s maritime industry. Meantime, the Polar Pioneer platform remains anchored in Port Angeles; the Noble Discoverer drillship is expected in Everett next week; and two Shell-related vessels, Aiviq and Harvey Champion, are at T-5 right now. And a Shell executive was quoted earlier this week as saying the city ruling wouldn’t impede their Arctic-drilling plan.

ADDED 3:33 PM: Foss Maritime has announced it plans to appeal the DPD interpretation, and that it intends to go ahead with bringing Shell’s oil rigs here during the time it takes to resolve the appeal:

Foss Maritime plans to appeal the city of Seattle’s determination that Foss’s use of the Port of Seattle’s Terminal 5 is not allowed under the Port’s existing use permit.

The appeal process will take months to complete. In the meantime, Foss intends to provide its customer, Royal Dutch Shell, the services for which it contracted over the next few weeks as it prepares for the summer oil exploration season in Alaska.

The city’s position is not supported by the plain language of the permit at issue, and will cause long-term harm to the maritime industry as a whole. The permit for Terminal 5 allows Port customers to tie up vessels so that goods and cargo can be stored, loaded and unloaded, which is precisely what Foss is doing at Terminal 5.

By taking this action so late in the day, Mayor Ed Murray is trying to stop a lawful project that has already put 417 people to work full-time and will soon employ hundreds more, many of them citizens of Seattle. Worse, he has openly solicited the Port of Seattle to use the city’s action as a pretext to break a valid lease at Terminal 5, despite the separately elected Port Commission’s recent unanimous vote to uphold the lease.

These actions are an attempt to prevent one of the city’s oldest and most prominent companies from performing marine services that it has provided and the Port has welcomed for generations. This action is akin to the mayor ordering Seattle City Light to cut off all electricity to Amazon on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

If his actions simply impacted Foss, that would be bad enough. But it jeopardizes many other business activities across the waterfront, and calls into question the sincerity of the mayor’s previous statements in support of the maritime sector.

For example, under the city’s initial determination, Alaska fishing trawlers would not be allowed to winter over at the cruise ship docks at Terminals 90 and 91; the Seattle Fire Department’s fire boats could not dock at Terminals 90 and 91 as they are currently doing; and the vessels of the U.S. Navy and other navies that visit during Seafair would not be allowed to tie up at Port facilities. Maritime businesses from Ballard to South Park are doubtless nervously checking their permits and wondering whether the mayor will deem them worthy.

Foss believes that the permitting at Terminal 5 is appropriate for our use, and that the city’s determination is a statement of politics rather than policy. Accordingly, we will challenge it through the appropriate channels. The process looks like this:

* Foss will appeal the determination to the Seattle Hearing Examiner within 14 days. Other interested parties, such as the Port, may join in the appeal.

* The hearing examiner will then set a hearing date on the matter.

* The hearing examiner would typically produce a ruling on the matter within 15 days after the hearing.

* Under normal circumstances, the city would not issue a violation to Foss or the Port of Seattle until and unless it prevailed in the hearing.