SSA Marine

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{{#badges: CoalSwarm}}SSA Marine, formerly Stevedoring Services of America, was founded in 1949 and is today one the largest marine operators in the world. When they changed the name in 2003, the created a new company, Carrix, Inc., which is currently the parent company of SSA. They are a $1 billion a year, family owned company with over 10,000 employees and a long history of anti-labor union activity. [1]

Contracts

  • Between the years 1990-2002, SSA has had 18 contracts from the US government worth a total of $86,117,000. [2]
  • On March 24, 2003, SSA was awarded a $4.8 million contract worth as much as $14.3 million from USAID to operate and manage the port of Umm Qasr in Iraq [3][4] This contract was finished June 30, 2004. [5]

Management

Contact

SSA Marine
1131 SW Klickitat Way
Seattle, WA 98134
phone: (800) 422 3505; (206) 623 0304
fax: (206) 623 0179
website: SSA Marine; Carrix

Permitting for Gateway Terminal

The environmental review process for the Gateway Pacific cargo terminal at Cherry Point began officially on Feb. 28, 2011, when SSA Marine submitted preliminary documents on the $500 million project to Whatcom County, state agencies and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The site, between the BP Cherry Point oil refinery and the Alcoa Intalco Works aluminum smelter, has been zoned industrial for many years, and land use regulations on the site envision eventual construction of the type of pier that SSA is proposing. Bob Watters, an SSA Marine vice president, said he's confident that the study process won't uncover any environmental issues that are too serious or too costly to overcome, but the project won't have certainty until the study phase is complete in about two years.[1]

In a letter to the Whatcom Council of Governments, Bob Ferris, executive director of RE Sources for Sustainable Communities, contended that the terminal's most likely use is for coal exports, and coal trains through the city would mean traffic disruptions, public spending on safety improvements, lost property values, disruption of business activity, and pollution from both coal dust and diesel locomotive exhaust. His letter also notes that Council of Goverments members are likely to face "extreme political pressures" as the process moves ahead.[1]

If the environmental review and permitting process goes through, SSA would then also need to obtain a lease from the Washington Department of Natural Resources, which manages the state's waters, before beginning construction in early 2013 and beginning operations in 2015. At that point, SSA would have a pier capable of handling as many as three large vessels at a time, loading bulk commodities such as coal, potash, calcined petroleum coke and grain for shipment to Asian markets. Watters acknowledged that at full capacity, the terminal could draw as many as nine loaded trains per day through Bellingham, and they would then head back through the city after unloading.[1]

During the week of June 6-10, 2011 SSA Marine filed a permit application the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal. The application read:

"The applications submitted herein will cover the difference in scope between that approved project and our full buildout plan."

The earlier permit was noted in the application was approved by the Whatcom County Council in 1997. At that time, it envisioned a 180-acre development that would handle 8.2 million tons of cargoes per year, including petroleum coke (produced by local refineries) iron ore, sulfur, potash and wood chips. Coal was not mentioned an an export commodity in the earlier permit.[2]

Later in June 2011, Whatcom County officials announced that SSA must apply for a new permit for its proposed Gateway Terminal.[3]

Links

References

  1. ↑ Jump up to: 1.0 1.1 1.2 John Stark, "Gateway Pacific terminal at Cherry Point starts permit process" The Seattle Times, March 1, 2011.
  2. ↑ "Gateway Pacific permit application now available online" John Stark, The Bellingham Herald, June 14, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Whatcom County: Gateway Pacific cargo terminal needs new permit" Jared Paben, The Bellingham Herald, June 23, 2011.
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