WHIDBEY ISLAND – After six years and at least $5.5 million dollars worth of studies, a controversial proposal to replace ferry terminals at Keystone and Port Townsend now appears dead in the water.
The future of ferry service between south Whidbey Island and the Olympic Peninsula may now have more to do with how long a fleet of aging ferries continues to operate than whether new terminals are built, a state official said Tuesday.
Washington State Ferries now is considering not replacing the Klickitat and three other 80-year-old Steel Electric ferries that are used on the route, said Steve Reinmuth, director of government relations for the state Department of Transportation.
Those vessels – the oldest ferries in operation on salt water in the U.S. – are the only ferries in the state’s fleet that are small and agile enough to navigate the existing terminals at Keystone and Port Townsend, ferry officials say.
Instead, the state is pursing plans to build four new ferries that will be too large to use at the existing terminals at Keystone and Port Townsend, Reinmuth said.
If that happens, the state probably would continue to use the Klickitat and its sister ferries on the Keystone to Port Townsend route until the U.S. Coast Guard tells them to stop, Reinmuth said.
After that, he said, it would be up to state lawmakers to decide whether to shut down the route, which now carries only about 3 percent of the state’s ferry riders and is losing money.
Talk of enlarging or moving the terminals to accommodate larger vessels has run into stiff opposition from residents on Whidbey Island and in Port Townsend.
“If the community doesn’t want a bigger boat then why run bigger boats to that terminal?” Reinmuth asked. “And I think there are some real questions about whether the route is sustainable at the current levels, economically. And those are questions that will have to be addressed by the Legislature and the communities.”
Ferry officials had expected this spring to issue environmental impact statements on options for replacing the deteriorating wooden terminals at Keystone and Port Townsend.
The work has been suspended indefinitely, ferry officials said.
One issue is that the future of the ferry terminals is linked with the fate of the Klickitat and the state’s other Steel Electric class ferries, the Illahee, Nisqually and Quinault.
The boats are falling apart. Ferry service between the island and Port Townsend was sidelined for two-and-a-half days last week while crews repaired a six-inch crack in the Klickitat’s hull.
It was just one of six breaches or holes found in the Klickitat’s hull over the last 10 years, state records show. Emergency repairs for those problems, as well work on damaged rudders and decks, have sidelined the ferry 11 times since 1997.
The Legislature in 2001 said the time had come to replace the Klickitat and the other Steel Electric ferries. But six years later, that effort has instead sparked little beyond legal challenges, especially by a Tacoma shipbuilder who claims the state is dragging its feet and overlooking options.
J.M. Martinac Shipbuilding Corp. has filed litigation in state and federal courts, including a federal lawsuit alleging state officials have engaged in what amounts to civil racketeering in thwarting their efforts to get a chance to build the new ferries.
Martinac proposed building new ferries that use a different drive system than the state wants. According to the shipbuilder’s tests, those vessels could safely operate at the existing Keystone and Port Townsend terminals.
A Thurston County Superior Court judge in February ruled that the state can decide to build new ferries that won’t replace the Steel Electric ferries now operating out of Keystone and Port Townsend.
Martinac is appealing the ruling.
Ferry officials have blamed legal challenges by Martinac and others for lack of progress on the new ferries.
The shipbuilder is concerned about safety on the ferry runs and wasted money, said Martinac’s attorney, Jed Powell, of the Seattle law firm Cairncross and Hempelmann.
“If (the ferry system) has decided to not pursue the Keystone relocation, it is one more time when they have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on an ill-conceived idea,” he said.
Four of the five options that have been considered for the Keystone terminal range in price from $805 million to $1.64 billion over 30 years. Those figures include everything from the cost of new ferries to fuel and salaries for crews.
The actual cost of terminal construction is estimated to range from $30 to $60 million, said Hadley Greene, community relations manager for Washington State Ferries.
A cost estimate hasn’t been developed for the fifth option, which would involve moving the terminal somewhere else on Whidbey.
The state has budgeted $31.4 million for the Keystone terminal project.
Since work on the terminal project was put on hold in October, a group of concerned community leaders has met with ferry staff twice, Greene said. The meetings have not been open to the public, but Greene said they’ve provided people with a stake in the project an opportunity to voice concerns.
A third meeting is scheduled for Monday.
Herald writer Scott North contributed to this report.
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
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