Wash. state lawmaker wants to merge Seattle, Tacoma, Everett ports

Wash. state lawmaker wants to merge Seattle, Tacoma, Everett ports The Jan. 1 amalgamation of three Vancouver-area Canadian ports into one port authority has led to a call from Washington state lawmakers for a similar merger of the Puget Sound ports.
   Rep. Glenn Anderson, R-Fall City, said he plans to introduce legislation in the state legislature that would create the Puget Sound Port Authority. The PSPA would operate the three Puget Sound ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Everett as a single agency with reduced local control.
   Anderson told the Puget Sound Business Journal that his legislation would create an 11-member PSPA commission modeled after the amalgamated board of the Vancouver-area ports of Vancouver, Frazier River and North Frazier created earlier this month.
   The PSPA board would comprise five governor-appointed commissioners and two elected commissioners each from King, Pierce and Snohomish counties. Under the proposal, the commissioners would receive salaries and the overseas offices of each separate port would be combined with the state's existing overseas offices.
   The legislation, according to Anderson, was also inspired by the recent wooing of several notable tenants from the Port of Seattle by the nearby Tacoma port.
   In July, Seattle tenant NYK Line said it would move its Pacific Northwest operations out of Seattle once Tacoma completes a new $300 million terminal for the Japan-based ocean carrier in 2012. It followed a 2006 end-of-the-year switch from Seattle to Tacoma by fellow Japanese ocean carrier 'K' Line.
   Last week, Japanese ocean carrier Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd., one of Seattle's oldest container handling tenants, became the latest Port of Seattle defector, announcing that the firm would shift to the Port of Tacoma starting this month.