Vancouver deal with Alcoa moves forward

Port of Vancouver, Washington officials approved a lease with Alcoa Inc. Thursday in a precursor move to the port's outright purchase of the 107-acre property.

Under terms of the lease, the Vancouver port will pay $1 per month and 4 cents per square foot for any land used, which is limited under the deal to the long-dormant facility抯 berth and waterfront. Any money spent by the port on the lease would be deducted from the full purchase price to be paid to Alcoa.

Port officials and New York City-based Alcoa reached a general agreement on the purchase and sale of the waterfront property in January 2007. The parties signed a letter of intent on Feb. 1, 2007 and negotiations led to a final agreement in June 2007.

The purchase had been set to close March 31, but Alcoa halted the $23.7 million deal after the Washington Department of Ecology rejected an Alcoa mitigation plan for the property. Also on Thursday, the state issued a proposed order that, if approved after a 30-day public comment period, would define the role Alcoa would have to play in the cleanup of the site.

Under the order, Alcoa would remove underground storage tanks at the site, retest an area of the Columbia River shoreline found by the state to be contaminated with PCB from the site抯 smelter operation, and re-grade portions of the property above the riverbank.

In addition to the property, the full purchase of the Alcoa property would also transfer ownership to the port of the Alcoa facility's alumina unloading dock, silos, conveyors, rail load out and accessory structures and equipment for the operation of the unloading facility.

Following the close of the full sale and cleanup, the port hopes to begin construction of the West Vancouver Freight Access Project on the site. The project will create a unit train facility at the port, increasing capacity for rail freight flowing through the port and along the BNSF Railway mainlines that connect the Pacific Northwest to major rail hubs in Chicago and Houston and from Canada to Mexico. 

Source: American Shipper