LONGVIEW — Some smaller ports specialize in grain or coal or seafood. The Port of Longview once specialized in raw log exports but now has shifted to imports of major components for electricity-generating wind farms.
Over the last five years, the port on the Columbia River about 45 miles north of Portland, Ore., has become one of the region’s top entry points for wind energy equipment made in Denmark and Germany and bound for the windy plains of the rural west.
“It has replaced, to a large extent, the revenue associated with log exports,” port Director Ken O’Hollaren said. “It has filled that gap nicely.”
In five years the business has grown from a couple ships to such a crowded stream of vessels that port officials have set aside 50 acres of land for newly arrived wind turbines to await transport to wind farms around the West.
This year Longview expects 40 vessels bearing more than 3,000 tower sections and turbine parts, an increase of more than 1,300 percent growth from 2003.
Wind energy-related shipments have accounted for more than a quarter of the port’s revenue through July, $2.7 million, of which about $1.5 million went to longshore wages — the equivalent of about 30 jobs at base pay.
Meanwhile, log exports to Asia have been whittled from 130 vessels loaded with 356 million board feet in 1990 to six ships with 11.4 million board feet last year.
While port officials think the new business will remain stable for years, there remains some nagging uncertainty because of the cloudy future of a key tax incentive for foreign manufacturers and an increase in domestic production of wind power components.
The tax incentive, which cuts millions of dollars from wind farm construction costs, expires Dec. 31. Congress has allowed it to expire three times since 1999, each time followed by a freefall in wind energy production and subsequently a boom period after it was restored.
Wind energy backers and lawmakers, including Rep. Brian Baird and Sen. Maria Cantwell, both D-Wash., are seeking an extension for as long as five years before the current credit expires.
“If (developers) don’t know what the price is, they can’t put together the package they need,” said Valerie Harris, the port’s marketing director.
Meanwhile, according to the American Wind Energy Association, 13 new manufacturing plants for wind farms were set to begin energy production in 2007, adding to 36 already in business.
Port officials counter that they’re equally ready to handle exports, such as a recent shipment of wind energy components manufactured in North Dakota that was loaded onto a ship bound for Australia.
“I think there’s enough growth here to accommodate exports as well as imports,” O’Hollaren said.
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