This County Council action appears to have slipped by under the radar here on the Island. The County apparently is taking steps to make it safer for the Whatcom Chief to dock in Fairhaven.
From a report by the Council office of County Council actions taken at their 1/24/2012 meeting:
6. Request authorization for the County Executive to enter into an interlocal agreement between Whatcom County and the Port of Bellingham to install a single fender pile at the Bellingham Cruise Terminal to accommodate the safe docking of the Whatcom Chief, in the amount of $25,000 (AB2012-052)
Approved Consent 7-0
Note: “Approved Consent 7-0″ means this item was on the Consent Agenda, a part of each Council meeting where items upon which all Council members agree are scheduled. Consent items are not discussed individually, but are voted on all at once as a group. The “7-0″ indicates a unanimous vote of all seven Council members to approve the items.
Filed under: Docks (mainland), Ferry operations, Ferry service, Safety, Whatcom County government Tagged: | Bellingham Cruise Terminal, Fairhaven dock, Ferry operations, lummi island ferry, Port of Bellingham, Whatcom County Council, Whatcom county ferry
I hope this is not an indication of what we might be looking at in the future.
From Previous research, with the Whatcom Chief, this equates to maximum 8 round trips per day, 16 cars per trip, maximum passenger space of 36 walk-ons per trip, 2.25 hours round trip, maximum capacity of 8 cars per hour and a fuel burn of right around 450 gallons a day.
If we calculate the fuel cost alone, we come to 450-142 (current daily average), X $3.26 (over 500 gallon cost in Bellingham today) X 365=
$366,489.20. This does not include the increased cost of maintenance, need and cost for a much larger vessel, increased crew requirements, etc. I wonder, isn’t paying the current lease much less expensive?
Jim Dickinson
My understanding is that there is no plan or proposal to start using Fairhaven for ferry traffic. This was explained to us as an opportunity to make the docking of the Chief at Fairhaven safer by installing a single fender pile near the existing Alaska Ferry dock. Currently without that fender pile, because the existing dock is so large in comparison to the Chief, the Chief can in part actually float under the dock and get damaged. This single fender pile would prevent this.
The Port was doing other pile work in this area so the County is able to add this on to their work at a substantial savings from having to do it alone. This will help provide safer docking there for whatever need we have to go there in the future.
Hope that helps
Carl