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COOS BAY - Three years and seven months ago Gov. Ted Kulongoski swore in five members of an all-new port commission.

He wanted change.

He wanted people who would take a “fresh look at critical choices facing the port and the region.”

Friday, Kulongoski told about 100 people gathered before him that economic transformation is coming. The governor came to the Coos Bay Boardwalk to sign House Bill 5036. It would send $60 million toward the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay's project to widen and deepen the lower shipping channel.

“I don't have to tell you, this is a very momentous day,” Kulongoski said to the crowd gathered in the pavilion.

Determination

The accomplishment is more than a state commitment to help finance the dredging project. The legislation could go a long way toward attracting APM Terminals North America, the U.S. operating division of A.P. Moeller Maersk, that is proposing to build a container shipping terminal on the North Spit. Initially, $5 million will be spent on environmental study. But there's a catch. Kulongoski said the state needs a favorable commitment from APM to trigger the release of the other $55 million.

And APM Terminals' president, Eric A. Sisco, was there to hear it. Sisco and another APM representative sat in the audience 15 feet away watching the ceremony. But APM officials were quiet.

This ceremony was for the governor, state Sen. Joanne Verger, D-Coos Bay; Rep. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay; and Rep. Susan Morgan, R-Roseburg; and port officials.

Coos Bay has seen the best and worst of times over the past 30 years, Kulongoski said. It went from a bustling port to a region with the dubious title of having the highest unemployment rate in the state. Then two years ago, he was here to sign legislation to finance the new airport terminal at North Bend.

Now this.

“You have this great opportunity to be a part of something that's transformation,” he said.

Kulongoski praised Verger as the energy behind the dredging legislation. She mentioned the issue every time she saw him.

“I mean every time,” Kulongoski said, before he introduced his good friend.

The senator was quick to say no progress happens without individuals who pick up the cause and work for it. She went on to thank Rep. Morgan as the one who set up a regional transportation group and unfailingly sought support from all of Southwest Oregon. And she commended the port commission.

“Governor, you did the right thing,” Verger said.

Port officials first started hinting about the container terminal late last year, saying a company was looking at 800 acres on the spit. They dubbed it Project April, but refused to talk, citing confidentiality agreements.

It was Verger who tied Maersk's name to the project in late March. She was working to gain support in the Legislature for the dredging project, to bring legitimacy to the project that could mean hundreds of jobs for Coos Bay.

But even so, there was doubt in the final days of the Legislature, when Verger feared the bill would fail. It was the governor, she told the crowd, who pushed it over the top.

Not without protest

As Verger spoke, her voice was drowned at times by honking horns of cars and pickup trucks traveling U.S. Highway 101, likely in response to protesters. About 25 area residents lined the paved walkway near the pavilion waving anti-LNG and other signs.

“They are trying to snow people,” said Empire resident Ruby Starr.

Starr and the others weren't there as much to protest the container terminal, as they wanted the governor to know they oppose a $500 million liquefied natural gas import facility also proposed for the North Spit.

“I want them to stop the LNG,” said Linda Gonzales, a three-year Glasgow resident.

But, Starr also said she doesn't want to see the channel project go through for fear it will damage fisheries and the land and homes bordering the bay itself. Protesters said that despite port claims that the LNG project is not tied to the channel deepening, they believe it is. They believe it's a threat all the way around.

“I see LNG as being detrimental to the cargo people,” said Jody McCaffree of North Bend.

But throughout the entire legislation celebration, not one speaker mentioned liquefied natural gas. The focus stayed on the container terminal project.

The big step

“I hope as this project comes into reality ... that you realize there are people in Roseburg that are just as stoked as you are,” Rep. Morgan said.

Curry, Josephine, Jackson and Douglas counties are all behind the project, she said.

Port officials and APM Terminals documents have said the company needs at least 275 acres for its multi-user terminal and 4,000 feet of berthing space. At full build out, the company would bring in 2 million standard-sized containers annually. Such a development would rival the Port of Tacoma, Wash.

APM Terminals looked at every West Coast port before it zeroed in on Coos Bay, Sisco said of his company. The project is in an early phase now. There are at least three key issues the company will study, including the availability of rail service to move containers, support from the shipping industry and environmental studies. There's no timeline, he said, but it is accelerating.

“Without the deepening of the channel, this wouldn't have gone forward,” Sisco said, before port Executive Director Jeff Bishop started to usher him away.

The next step

As to what happens now, the channel project is in the environmental research stage. Consultants are investigating permitting. Coos County planners are scheduling land use hearings.

But the port commission plans to take up the project in a public meeting as soon as Thursday. Its agenda arrived in mailboxes Friday. No. 3 on the consent list is an item to give the executive director authorization to sign an agreement with Project April.