Site Logo

Don’t let Boeing pier harm Mukilteo

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, May 1, 2004

The Port of Everett is going to build a 700- to 900-foot pier for the Boeing Co. at Mukilteo’s north shoreline. The port has a preferred site configuration — a "finger pier" pointing northeast, toward Mount Baker. This requires that diesel locomotives unload rail barges laden with "containers the size of small office buildings," pull these huge containers into Old Town Mukilteo, then push that freight up the existing rail spur, via a right-hand turn into Japanese Gulch and up to the Boeing assembly plant.

This choice has absolutely no benefits for the city of Mukilteo. Rather, significant and permanent harm will be done if the port selects this alternative. Importantly, the port will experience the same harm when it exercises its power to build out the tank farm.

The disadvantages to Mukilteo and the Port of Everett include the industrialization of one of the most beautiful shorelines in Puget Sound, and the increased visual blight from a gritty railroad switching yard running right onto Mukilteo’s front porch, which:

  • Vastly decreases Mukilteo’s access to quality venture capital and preferred bond rates as the City of Mukilteo works to direct positive change ("progress") in the coming decades.

  • Forges a scenario in which Old Town’s businesses become less numerous and of lower quality, generating less economic activity and revenues for the community.

  • Ensures less profit for the business community, and less tax money for the city.

  • Lessens the ability of city government to provide public services and amenities that benefit of the entire community — for decades.

  • Permanently limits civic choices in directing Old Town’s future growth.

  • Severely decreases the treasured quality of life for Old Town residents — forever.

  • And finally, when the port exercises its federal entitlement to develop the tank farm, its revenues are likewise diminished — for decades.

    The spiral goes downhill where an alternative plan leads upward.

    I have proposed this alternative — a mirror-image plan that points the pier to the northwest, toward Clinton. It would construct rail track changes that allow the rail barges to unload east onto inaccessible, bluff-buffered shoreline within the City of Everett. Engines would then push the containers up Japanese Gulch to Boeing, via a left-hand turn. This choice gives many and permanent benefits to Mukilteo and the port without posing insurmountable problems for the port.

    The advantages for Mukilteo and the port are:

  • It prevents the industrialization of North Mukilteo, leaving untrammeled a most beautiful and accessible shoreline, creating no additional blight in Old Town Mukilteo, and permitting opportunity for improvement in Old Town’s quality of life.

  • It impressively expands civic choices in directing positive change ("progress").

  • It maximizes the community’s access to venture capital and affordable bond rates.

  • It encourages growth of quality businesses in Old Town — enterprises with more business activity and higher profits that generate more public revenues, thereby increasing the city’s ability to provide services and amenities to the entire community.

    The spiral goes up.

    The port’s current preferred alternative serves the port’s short-term interests, but to the extreme detriment of Mukilteo.

    The mirror image alternative better serves Mukilteo, the port and the region in the long-term.

    The mirror image alternative is clearly the proper choice. Point the pier to Clinton.

    E. Scott Casselman is a physician who has practiced in Everett since 1980.

    • You Might Like