The Company Leasing Terminal 5 for Shell Will Appeal City's Decision to Block Arctic Drilling Rig

The company, Foss Maritime, says it'll continue servicing Shell and just ignore the city. Anna Hoychuk/ Shutterstock

On Monday, Mayor Ed Murray dropped a bombshell on the beleaguered port commission: The local land use permit for the space the port had leased out to host Shell's Arctic drilling fleet wouldn't allow for drilling equipment. Today, the lessee of that space, Foss Maritime, announced it would be appealing that decision—and ignoring it in the interim.

"The appeal process will take months to complete," the announcement reads. "In the meantime, Foss intends to provide its customer, Royal Dutch Shell, the services for which it contracted over the next few weeks as it prepares for the summer oil exploration season in Alaska."

Foss says it will appeal the decision to the Seattle Hearing Examiner in the next two weeks—and the port can join in, too, if it so chooses. When reached for comment by e-mail, Port of Seattle spokesperson Peter McGraw wrote this: "Only that our commission will take up the City’s interpretation on Tuesday’s meeting. Have a great weekend!"

We've reached out to the mayor's office and will update when we hear back.

Here's the rest of the "Fuck you, mayor!" announcement:

Foss Maritime plans to appeal the city of Seattle’s determination that Foss’s use of the Port of Seattle’s Terminal 5 is not allowed under the Port’s existing use permit.



The appeal process will take months to complete. In the meantime, Foss intends to provide its customer, Royal Dutch Shell, the services for which it contracted over the next few weeks as it prepares for the summer oil exploration season in Alaska.



The city’s position is not supported by the plain language of the permit at issue, and will cause long-term harm to the maritime industry as a whole. The permit for Terminal 5 allows Port customers to tie up vessels so that goods and cargo can be stored, loaded and unloaded, which is precisely what Foss is doing at Terminal 5.



By taking this action so late in the day, Mayor Ed Murray is trying to stop a lawful project that has already put 417 people to work full-time and will soon employ hundreds more, many of them citizens of Seattle. Worse, he has openly solicited the Port of Seattle to use the city’s action as a pretext to break a valid lease at Terminal 5, despite the separately elected Port Commission’s recent unanimous vote to uphold the lease.



These actions are an attempt to prevent one of the city’s oldest and most prominent companies from performing marine services that it has provided and the Port has welcomed for generations. This action is akin to the mayor ordering Seattle City Light to cut off all electricity to Amazon on the Friday after Thanksgiving.



If his actions simply impacted Foss, that would be bad enough. But it jeopardizes many other business activities across the waterfront, and calls

into question the sincerity of the mayor’s previous statements in support of the maritime sector.



For example, under the city’s initial determination, Alaska fishing trawlers would not be allowed to winter over at the cruise ship docks at Terminals 90 and 91; the Seattle Fire Department’s fire boats could not dock at Terminals 90 and 91 as they are currently doing; and the vessels of the U.S. Navy and other navies that visit during Seafair would not be allowed to tie up at Port facilities. Maritime businesses from Ballard to South Park are doubtless nervously checking their permits and wondering whether the mayor will deem them worthy.



Foss believes that the permitting at Terminal 5 is appropriate for our use, and that the city’s determination is a statement of politics rather than policy. Accordingly, we will challenge it through the appropriate channels. The process looks like this:



 Foss will appeal the determination to the Seattle Hearing Examiner within 14 days. Other interested parties, such as the Port, may join in the appeal.



 The hearing examiner will then set a hearing date on the matter.



 The hearing examiner would typically produce a ruling on the matter within 15 days after the hearing.



 Under normal circumstances, the city would not issue a violation to Foss or the Port of Seattle until and unless it prevailed in the hearing.

UPDATE: “The Mayor continues to stand by the Department of Planning and Development’s finding that the proposed long-term moorage and maintenance of Arctic drilling equipment at Terminal 5 is not covered under the Port’s existing 20 year old permit to operate a marine cargo terminal," mayoral spokesperson Viet Shelton said.



He added this in response to the argument that the decision could start a series of questions about activities at other port spaces: "What’s more, despite the assertions of some, it’s important to note that DPD’s finding that the Port must apply for a new permit is specific only to the proposed Arctic drilling rig and related vessels at T5 and cannot be applied to other Port activities or properties."