Many in the overflow Bellingham crowd that came to Squalicum Boathouse Tuesday evening, Dec. 5, at the invitation of ABC Recycling didn’t come to hear the specifics of the Canadian company’s plans to build a metal shredder.
They came instead with pointed questions about noise, traffic and the environmental risks the shredder would bring to a mixed neighborhood of homes and businesses just northwest of the city limits.
The loudest people in the crowd of roughly 300, many of whom strained to hear the proceedings from outside the boathouse’s doors, simply wanted to run ABC Recycling out of town.
“We don’t want you here!” several members of the audience shouted. “It’s our city.”
Riley Sweeney, ABC’s local face and its community relations manager, elicited a raucous cheer from the crowd when he read the first audience question off a note card:
“Why aren’t you building this in Canada?”
When ABC’s Andy Anthony, vice president of operations, responded by saying their move to Bellingham was “strategic,” a voice in the crowd translated that for everyone else:
“Profitable!”
The day after the meeting, Sweeney said ABC Recycling wasn’t surprised by the negative reception, but it was disappointed.
The most disruptive voices in the room made it difficult for other attendees to learn about ABC’s shredder, Sweeney added.
“A lot of people came to that meeting to listen,” he said. “Not a lot of people are familiar with what industrial recycling is and looks like.”
Despite the distractions, ABC Recycling managed to outline some of its plans for the Alderwood area.
The company is submitting applications with Whatcom County to start a metal-shredding operation at 741 Marine Drive, next to a former cement plant. The facility would shred and crush old automobiles and appliances. The iron-based metals would then go to the Bellingham Shipping Terminal, to be loaded on vessels and shipped overseas for recycling.
The nearly 20-acre site would be developed with four steel prefab buildings — three for shredding and sorting metal, and one office/shop.
ABC Recycling on Oct. 24 submitted a major project permit application to the county, along with an environmental checklist as required by the State Environmental Policy Act, or SEPA. Planning officials will use the information in the checklist to decide whether a more in-depth environmental review known as an environmental impact statement is called for.
In that case, the major project permit will be required, and the final decision on project approval will rest with the seven members of the Whatcom County Council.
While any council decision must be based on whether the project meets existing county regulations — not whether council members or their constituents want a metal shredder in the community — councilors will undoubtedly be under intense political pressure to reject the proposal.
The SEPA checklist gives a tentative timeline for the project: Start construction in 2024, then open the facility in 2025, depending on when and if permits are approved.
A major project permit is not likely to get done by next year. Before the project comes before the county council, it must first undergo a lengthy review by a hearing examiner.
While ABC Recycling has a lot more work to do to complete its application, it has already submitted thousands of pages of documents to the county planning department.
A noise study indicates the loudest sounds would come not from the shredder itself but from dumping or moving metal. All sounds would be within legal limits, the study concluded, with a volume somewhere between a bustling office and a lawn mower.
ABC Recycling also must meet state and county stormwater requirements for industrial sites. The company outlines how it intends to do that in a 638-page stormwater management report.
The crowd at the Squalicum Boathouse — many of the same faces who showed up at meetings a decade ago to fight a proposed coal terminal at Cherry Point — did not sound convinced.
But one anonymous audience member had a ready solution to the environmental impacts the Canadian company might bring:
“Why don’t you take your waste materials home with you?”
This story was updated at 1:55 p.m. Dec. 6 to include a statement from ABC Recycling Community Relations Manager Riley Sweeney.
