Officials from the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, a University-affiliated marine research institute, are concerned that economic development could jeopardize the environment that researchers study, even though the initial threat has passed.
Last month the Bay Bridge Enterprises, a Virginia-based company, was considering building a ship-salvaging operation on privately owned land in Coos Bay, two miles away from the institute, said Greg Aldridge, chair of the South Coast Development Council.
OIMB, in the community of Charleston, Ore., conducts research on marine life by pumping sea water into on-site tanks to keep organisms they study alive. Marine pollution could contaminate the research environment.
“It’s not clear to me that the boat-breaking activities are well-enough controlled to prevent pollution,” OIMB director Craig Young said, citing the risk of heavy metals, asbestos and oil entering the water from the ships.
The ships could affect research in other ways, too. Ships brought to the area for salvage could also introduce non-native and invasive organisms to the environment, Young said.
Bay Bridge Enterprises was seeking to bring scrap ships up the Oregon coast from San Francisco Bay, which is more overrun by invasive species than most other harbors in the world.
In addition to disrupting ecosystems, Young said invasive species can cause millions of dollars in economic damage. For example, the zebra mussel, which was introduced to the Great Lakes, routinely clogs marine pipes and power plant intakes.
“Economics has to be looked at from both sides,” Young said.
Young said that company is no longer looking at Coos Bay, but added that the issue is not yet settled.
The ships in San Francisco slated for salvage are owned by the U.S. government, which wants the scrapping to be done on the West Coast, so other companies may apply for contracts in the area, Aldridge added.
“There are other companies that could get involved in boat-breaking,” Young said.
There are only about six ship-salvaging companies in the world, Aldridge said, and they are not currently active in the area.
From October until last week, Bay Bridge Enterprises had also been considering a site in Newport. On Jan. 24, the Port of Newport Commission voted to discontinue negotiations, Port of Newport General Manager Don Mann said.
Mann said the main reason Newport rejected the offer was that it would have cost the port too much money.
“They thought we could spend more money on dredging, and we couldn’t,” Mann said.
Mann said that while some had concerns about the environmental effects of the business, those concerns were explained by the company to his satisfaction. For instance, some were worried about invasive species coming to the area from ship hulls, and the company said it would clean ship hulls before bringing them to Newport from California.
“There were still a lot of folks that felt that this was not a safe venture for Yaquina Bay,” Mann said.
Aldridge said the last he heard, Bay Bridge Enterprises was looking at a site in Portland.
The economy of Coos Bay and North Bend is in the process of moving away from dependence on the lumber and fishing industries, and Aldridge said another industry with living-wage jobs would be useful to the area, but he said local leaders are also concerned about the environment.
“I think the community, or at least the people there, had a lot of questions about the cleanliness of the operation,” Aldridge said.
Young said that even though a ship-salvaging operation could also bring jobs to the coast, OIMB also has a positive impact on the local economy.
“Apart from the seafood processing plant across the street, I think we’re the second-biggest employer in Charleston,” Young said.
The institute’s faculty and staff also live in Charleston and spend their income from federal grants locally, as do students who come to study at the institute, Young said. Also, graduate students at the institute teach science in local elementary schools through a federal program, saving the schools money.
Bay Bridge Enterprises did not return two phone calls seeking comment.
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