Plans for street access to a redeveloped waterfront are significantly adjusted in the latest addition to the waterfront environmental impact statement issued Monday, Feb. 8 The newest environmental study document calls for a southeasterly shift in the existing alignment of Central Avenue near the northerly portion of the waterfront site. The shift will make it easier to keep the existing Granary Building in place for potential preservation and reuse.

Plans for street access to a redeveloped waterfront are significantly adjusted in the latest addition to the waterfront environmental impact statement issued Monday, Feb. 8 The newest environmental study document calls for a southeasterly shift in the existing alignment of Central Avenue near the northerly portion of the waterfront site. The shift will make it easier to keep the existing Granary Building in place for potential preservation and reuse.

Wind instruments were installed Thursday, Jan. 7, on the Bellingham waterfront to gauge the feasibility of installing power-generating turbines on the site. The $8,000 project is a partnership of the Port of Bellingham, Bellingham Technical College and Western Washington University. The 160-foot tower that holds the instruments was installed by a crew from Wear Construction of Snohomish. It's in an area off Laurel Street that was formerly home to the Georgia-Pacific Corp.

Mike McAuley began a four-year term as a Port of Bellingham commissioner Monday and got off to a quiet start. McAuley unseated 16-year incumbent Doug Smith at the polls in November, promising to take a fresh look at port plans for a new marina and other waterfront projects. But facing an uncontroversial agenda filled with the housekeeping items that typically occupy the first meeting of the year, McAuley voted with holdover commissioners Jim Jorgensen and Scott Walker to approve every item on the agenda, except for his abstentions on approval of minutes from previous meetings.

When it comes to the Whatcom County economy, there's been a bit of soul-searching taking place in the past 10 years, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Up until around 1990, the economic identity of Whatcom County and Bellingham had been fairly easy to describe: With its steam billowing into the air and the sound of machinery clanging across the bay and throughout the town, Bellingham was known as a blue-collar, Georgia-Pacific company town.

Here are some of the Whatcom County stories and issues that made significant headlines from 2000 to 2009, had a lasting impact and are still talked about today.

The city's Public Development Authority plans to take a more aggressive role in waterfront redevelopment in the coming months, and that could mean new battles with the Port of Bellingham. At the authority's monthly board meeting Tuesday, Dec. 15, chairman Ken Hertz said the port is taking the wrong approach with a long-range plan that calls for eventual construction of six million square feet of new building space on 220 mostly idle waterfront acres that include the former Georgia-Pacific mill site.

The city and Port of Bellingham are wrestling with the details of a waterfront land swap that would give the city and its Public Development Authority some choice waterfront real estate parcels for commercial development, as well as for parks and public facilities, such as a new library. In separate interviews, Mayor Dan Pike and Port Commissioner Scott Walker outlined the key pieces of the deal:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration believes it can answer the questions raised by a federal watchdog agency and won't have to change its plans to move the West Coast base for its ships to Newport, Ore., a NOAA spokesman says. On Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office said it was upholding an appeal by the Port of Bellingham, which also bid for the fleet.

A recent story in the Bellingham Herald about Western’s plans at the waterfront had a headline that some on campus and in the community have misinterpreted to mean that Western is “scaling back” or retreating from its resolve to develop a significant presence on the Bellingham waterfront.

However, university officials clarify that headline to emphasize that the university is not scaling back its plans but is instead taking a more cautious preliminary approach to building on the waterfront because of the recession.

The Port of Newport, Ore., is moving ahead with construction of a new home port for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration vessels, despite a federal ruling that appears to revive Bellingham's hope of bringing NOAA here. "We're continuing to move ahead on the project," Don Mann, general manager at the Port of Newport, said Thursday, Dec. 3. "Nobody's told us to slow down." Mann said Newport has already hired engineers and contractors and expects to start site demolition work in January.

A consultant's report on empty waterfront industrial buildings contains little good news for those who had hoped that some or all of the red brick structures could be preserved and converted to new uses. Steve Johnson, whose firm got a $100,000 contract from the city and Port of Bellingham to assess the old buildings, reported Tuesday, Dec. 1, to the city's Historic Preservation Commission.

The Port of Bellingham might get a second chance at landing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific operations center, thanks to a Government Accountability Office ruling that finds fault with NOAA's preferred new site in Newport, Ore. The GAO ruling Wednesday, Dec. 2, upholds the Port of Bellingham's appeal of NOAA's decision in favor of Newport.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's research fleet may not be shipping out of Washington after all. A federal oversight agency today upheld a protest by the Port of Bellingham, which argued that NOAA had violated its own guidelines by selecting Newport, Ore., as its new homeport. Today's ruling said NOAA did not properly take into account the fact that a portion of the Newport site is in a flood plain.

Confronted with a shrinking state budget and a stalled economy, Western Washington University is scaling back its immediate plans for new buildings on the waterfront. At a Tuesday, Dec. 1, meeting with Port of Bellingham officials, university vice president Steve Swan stressed that the university is not abandoning its previous visions of major waterfront facilities, such as a new home for Huxley College of the Environment. But the financial outlook makes it impossible to move ahead with projects of that scale in the next few years, even in partnership with private investors.

On Sept. 28, as reported in this newspaper, Gov. Chris Gregoire and 100 business and civic leaders marked an important milestone: dedication of the 10,000 square-foot Technology Development Center located at the Port of Bellingham's Innovation Partnership Zone. This exciting partnership, involving the port, Western Washington University, Bellingham Technical College and industry, is already working with local boat builder All American Marine to develop a low-wake ferry using advanced composite materials.

In a stinging response to the Port of Bellingham's legal protest, the U.S. Department of Commerce is defending the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's choice of Newport, Ore., as the new home for the agency's Pacific Marine Operations Center. The Commerce Department response, prepared by three agency attorneys, contends that the Port of Bellingham's protest is "replete with factual inaccuracies and mischaracterizations of NOAA's actions."

Recently the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) decided to move its Marine Operations Center from Lake Union in Seattle to Newport, Oregon. A number of Washington locations were in the running but none was better suited than Bellingham. A few weeks ago a bipartisan group of state and local officials worked together to throw our support behind the Port of Bellingham and urged them to appeal NOAA's decision.

In Bellingham, the focus is on marine industries, starting with southside boatbuilder All-American Marine. Western Washington University faculty will lend their expertise in composite materials to help the company develop lighter-weight, lower-wake vessels.

Governor Christine Gregoire was in Bellingham Monday for the dedication of the Waterfront Innovation Zone Technology Development Center in the former Georgia-Pacific tissue warehouse on Bellingham’s waterfront.

Gov. Chris Gregoire spoke Monday at the grand opening and dedication of the new 1,000-square-foot Waterfront Innovation Zone: Technology Development Center located on the Port of Bellingham’s 220-acre Waterfront District.

art of the former Georgia-Pacific tissue warehouse on Bellingham’s waterfront is now the “Waterfront Innovation Zone: Technology Development Center.” Governor Christine Gregoire is helping dedicate the center Monday at 2 p.m.