business backgrounder | industry
“In the past few years, there have been very strident and aggres This is the shape of the new green NIMBY, local interventions
sive advocates of de-industrializing our economy,” they wrote, “even
with global consequences. Whatcom County may be an early
threatening the high-wage jobs at the existing Cherry Point indusproving ground.
tries (which include two oil refineries and an aluminum smelter),
John Huntley, with the Northwest Jobs Alliance, believes that
to say nothing of the prospect of new industrial job growth.”
their efforts have succeeded in slowing the deindustrialization
The alliance is a Whatcom County coalition of business, civic
movement. But he’s not leaving the arena. The activists, he
and labor leaders. Owens is the retired president of Northwest
believes, include “the type of environmentalists that don’t want to
Washington Building and Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO.
see any industry, especially fossil fuel and aluminum.”
Huntley is president and CEO of Mills Electric.
His co-chair, Owens, sees a long dispute.
For their part, the environmental groups contend they are not
“Deindustrialization efforts are moving ahead pretty strong,” he
advocating deindustrialization. Wechsler and Fred Felleman, a
says, “without a doubt.”
Northwest consultant for Friends of the Earth, responded to the
Today’s deindustrialization advocates don’t need to advertise
Northwest Jobs Alliance op-ed, writing in the Herald, “We have
their agendas. Instead, the efforts are shrouded in regulation and
never called for de-industrialization of the county.” Yet, they write
investigation. In Whatcom County, the environmental groups
in the same article, since 1954 “no one has conducted a study to
have endorsed “programmatic environmental impact statements,”
determine the economic costs associated with industrial activity at
requiring an assessment of regional and cumulative impacts.
Cherry Point.”
Wechsler wrote in Northwest Citizen, “What
should be occurring is a joint effort by the fedThe average annual wage paid to Cherry Point
eral, state, and local governments, in consultation
employees is
versus the average
with the tribes, to consider whether any industrial activity at Cherry Point is appropriate or
wage outside the industrial zone of
compatible with protecting that area.”
Any?
Like others, they promote heightened economic and environAs