Small but mighty ports relate successful planning, partnering and persistence
CommitmentMore than 400 people – a record number – attended this year’s GreenTech conference in Quebec City. And quite a few attendees could be overheard saying they wished they could be in both of the simultaneous panels held for several of the sessions. Green Marine is sharing the highlights of one of these panels on Small but Mighty Ports because their smart approaches can be of benefit to organizations of all sizes.
Here’s some of what the ports of Anacortes, Bellingham, Matane (through Ports Bas-Saint-Laurent Gaspésie), and Saguenay are doing in terms of their strategic thinking to make the most of finances, staff, time, innovation, and other resources. Vision, focus, preparedness, consultation and communication, partnership leveraging, as well as patience, are some of their common strengths.
Port of Saguenay
Smaller port organizations share a number of challenges related to having fewer resources, according to Carl Laberge, the Saguenay Port Authority’s President and CEO. “We do our best to make progress and track it, but we can’t usually afford what’s trendy or would be nice to have to make things easier,” he says. “We have to stay very focused on what it is that we can do.”
Carefully analyzing where and how a port’s limited resources will be put to best and/or greatest use – possibly achieving multiple goals – is essential.
“A lot of our land is up high, for example, so we decided to go with an electric conveyor system,” Laberge shares. “This investment directly into our assets improves operations without having to build anything else, while at the same time lowering our air emissions.”
The port has one staffer dedicated to sustainable development and the environment, but everyone among the 17 employees is encouraged to keep sustainable development top of mind to recognize and leverage opportunities. “This involves both initiating mutually beneficial partnerships with our communities and recognizing when it makes sense for our port to join a project already started by others,” Laberge explains.
Partnerships are how it becomes possible for smaller organizations to get bigger things done.
Laberge adds that while it might take more time to achieve a goal, focus must be clearly maintained. “The industrial park that we have planned for a large area of land will take 20 to 25 years to fully develop, but we’re taking this opportunity to design a unique space that integrates the living environment and makes everyone proud to go to work where there are trees, benches and walking and cycling paths,” he says. “The master plan will keep us on track while allowing for the flexibility that might be necessary to make some things happen.”
The master plan for approximately 12 square kilometres (4.6 square miles) integrates the preservation of important wetlands, lakes and other environmentally sensitive areas. In a dialogue with the community, the port has identified compensation projects to offset some of the future development and has already provided support to restore the health of a salmon river.
“We know there will be some impacts as soon as we start development, so we want to take this early opportunity to establish a list of compensation projects where we can pro-actively support the community with specific environmental goals,” Laberge says.
Port of Bellingham
Adrienne Douglass-Scott, the Sustainability Program Manager at the Port of Bellingham, has built the port’s sustainability program by developing climate action strategies and energy policy development, as well providing input on cargo movement, procurements, and capital projects. Her current focus is on energy resiliency and how to plan for activities in uncertain times.
“Sustainability work is part of our mandate at the Port of Bellingham as being a responsible trustee of our publicly owned assets,” she says.
It’s really important that the sustainability work that we do not be seen as discretionary.
With 250 tenants as well as other customers, the port oversees significant public infrastructure that includes an airport, two shipping terminals, and a marina with upwards of 2,000 commercial and recreational vessels. The port’s mission includes generating economic benefits and employment for the community.
Of the port’s 130 employees, six work on the environmental team. “We’re each wearing a lot of hats,” Douglass-Scott emphasizes.
Creating a clear vision is essential from the outset of any major initiatives. Three years ago, the port’s commission adopted a climate action strategy after extensive brainstorming. “We needed something to guide the processes,” Douglass-Scott relates.
“Our GHG targets align with our city, county and state targets, and we’ve achieved about 80% of our reduction goal.”
The port’s environmental team has led the cleanup of legacy industrial pollution at several locations and currently has seven cleanup projects in the works. “For example, we bought a large historical pulp mill site built on landfill for $10 in exchange for the environmental liability and have performed $86 million of work so far to clean it up for redevelopment,” Douglass-Scott notes.
Partnerships are a key strategy to substantial achievements. Another part of the port campus is served by a district energy system, the first in Washington State, where the heat generated by a natural-gas-powered facility is captured to generate heating and cooling nearby. “We’re trying to turn this whole area into a renewable energy hub,” Douglass-Scott adds.
Identifying financing opportunities is vital and led to the port obtaining $2.8 million in state funding to install shore power and $17 million for pier upgrades, including more cleanup. “As that funding seems to be harder to get, we realize we have to add creativity to our planning,” Douglass-Scott shares.
The port recognizes the importance of diversifying its energy portfolio, which includes aiming for greater electrification of its equipment. However, finding potential funding has turned into more of a quest these days, Douglass-Scott says.
Preparedness is key to seizing opportunities. “We’re making sure that we have clear objectives that will help us to navigate inconsistent federal and state policies,” she explains. “We’re also figuring out the permitting pathways.”
To make all this work, we developed a very clean roadmap to where we want to go and a very clear work plan to get there.
“We’ve obtained commitments from our leadership, tenants, and community, and repeatedly communicate to our trustees as to how this work ties back to our mandate and how what we are doing relates to what we said we would do,” she adds.
In addition to using the Green Marine framework to track progress, the port also issues a yearly sustainability report. “Our sustainability report is online and interactive as a Story Map,” she notes. “We have a fantastic social media team and get a lot of public engagement from our outreach work.”
Port of Anacortes
The Port of Anacortes concentrates on its dual mission of driving both economic development and exercising responsible stewardship for its marine terminal, marina, small airport, tenant shipyard, approximately 30 up-leased properties, as well as a 1,000-slip marina.
Located on an island, the port has put more than $60 million towards cleaning up brownfields for renewed uses that range from new business sites to park area. “We were able to leverage various funding sources, but it was all very complex,” shares Kevin Anderson, the port’s Planning, Properties & Environmental Manager.
With only himself and one other employee on the environment team, Anderson finds the Green Marine framework extremely helpful.
The Green Marine framework provides fantastic planning tools and a scaffolding on which we can build our environmental programs to get ahead of regulations. It also helps us to prepare for funding opportunities.
As part of a marine terminal’s modernization plan, for example, the port was able to complete a Scope 1 and 2 GHG assessment by partnering with the Puget Sound Maritime Emissions Inventory. “And Pacific Northwest National Laboratories did a case study on how we might improve our operations," Anderson adds.
Aligning objectives with other stakeholders is another successful route.
“We had a 120-year-old pier used for some 400 tug-hauls annually,” Anderson says. “By collaborating with the marine terminal users who joined us in advocating for upgrades, we were able to secure the funding to install shore power in the replacement marina which will reduce emissions and noise, as well as a commercial pump-facility which is needed because the Salish Sea and Puget Sound are in a no-discharge zone.”
When a local company approached the port about jointly submitting an EPA Clean Ports Funding application for a grant to help maritime businesses transition to zero emission technology, the port asked other key stakeholders if they also wanted to become involved. “Six partners representing the entire range of maritime logistics in Anacortes – including a terminal operator, a shipyard, a marine construction company, and Washington State Ferries – pooled resources to successfully obtain this grant,” Anderson shares.
The grant will be used to replace older more polluting equipment, and to train workers on newly emerging technologies . The port also secured EPA Clean Port planning funding to identify climate-related vulnerabilities within existing infrastructure, as well as related workforce development needs.
We’re also doing an emissions inventory and setting certain targets as a result of this collaboration. It has sparked exciting dialogues with our community that will be continued.
Port of Matane — Ports Bas-Saint-Laurent Gaspésie
Caroline Ratté, Director, Environment and Sustainable Development, for Ports Bas-Saint-Laurent Gaspésie, notes there are 12 employees on staff for the four ports – Gros-Cacouna, Rimouski, Matane and Gaspé – that span more than 600 kilometres (373 miles) of coastline along Quebec’s Lower St. Lawrence River.
In 2020, the Government of Canada transferred the four ports to the Government of Quebec, along with $148.8 million in financial compensation for their maintenance and future operation. The ports are owned by Quebec's Ministère des Transports et de la Mobilité durable and managed on its behalf by Ports Bas-Saint-Laurent Gaspésie. Three years ago, Ports Bas Saint-Laurent Gaspésie commissioned a consortium of two consulting firms, Norda Stelo and Englobe, to carry out the preliminary engineering and environmental impact assessment for the renewal of the Port of Matane.
Strategically located in the St. Lawrence Estuary, the Port of Matane has handled an average of 300,000 metric tons of mostly export cargo a year over the past five years (about 190,000 tons in 2025-2026). According to an economic impact study commissioned by Ports Bas-Saint-Laurent Gaspésie, activities at the port generate $167 million in economic spinoffs, supporting 1,144 direct and indirect jobs. It currently has four terminals operating on its premises, as well as a nearby railway, and commercial fishing operations.
However, the port no longer meets the contemporary needs of our users with just one commercial berth that is nearing the end of its service life. There’s also very limited space for storage.
With the consortium’s assistance, the port established the criteria for the port’s renewal. It involves meeting growing needs for material handling (import and export) and hence increasing port traffic with the construction of a second multi-use berth. The new proposed infrastructures are designed to handle windmill components and other heavy components. In alignment with the government’s maritime transition, the development also plans to eventually install shore power, and to prepare for climate change by elevating structures and reinforcing a breakwater based on rising water-level predictions.
“For a small team like Ports Bas-Saint-Laurent-Gaspésie, giving a single mandate for the preliminary engineering and environment assessment provided us tangible gains in effort, time and project development with the synergy from working with different areas of expertise at the same time,” Ratté emphasizes.
“This approach is allowing us to move forward with strong parallel communication and coordination to optimize the necessary steps and scheduling of this work.”
Stéphan Ferrero, Senior Port and Coastal Project Manager at Norda Stelo, notes the port’s significant potential for increased port traffic once the aging berth is replaced with a new one. “The challenge is to address the concerns regarding this existing dock, while designing and building a new berth with at least a 50-year lifespan – all without causing major interruption to the port’s day-to-day operations.”
After establishing that the existing quay is usable until 2033, preliminary studies were done on the port’s ideal development, with various scenarios analyzed to optimize the new area. “Simulations were conducted at the Maritime Simulation and Resource Centre in Quebec City to determine the best dock wall configuration for the types of ships calling on the port, the ideal maneuverability of vessels in severe weather conditions, as well as all the required dredging to create the renewed area,” Ferrero says.
Data was collected on the physical landscape, natural biodiversity, and nearby human presence and activities.
When environmental issues arose, we quickly adapted the project’s design and/or construction schedule to eliminate or minimize these impacts.
Key concerns were identified by holding extensive consultations with stakeholders. “We’re a small team, but the connection we’ve developed with the community is our strength,” Ratté says. “So, we held more than 40 meetings with port users, riverside residents, elected officials, economic and community development researchers along with others, which allowed us to establish a truly privileged relationship with this project’s various stakeholders.”
The concerns raised in regard to air quality, noise, light, and increased traffic were taken into account in the project design. For example, a traffic management plan is proposed to avoid trucks going down a particular residential street without causing a time-consuming detour for drivers. Speed limits for trucks and barges will also help to address safety and noise concerns.
“We were told by the residential community about the extensive noise caused by pile driving necessary to demolish a dock eight years ago,” Ratté adds. “So, we not only planned for acoustic enclosures for the new base piles but designed the project to avoid having to remove the piles from the existing berth.” As a result, 250 old berth piles will stay in place.
The approximately 200,000 cubic metres (261,600 cubic yards) of dredging needed to create a new access channel will be carefully sequenced to take into account ferry schedules, commercial fishing, and the protection of fish and marine mammals.
"For the land-based work, to protect the birds that nest right on the site, we’re starting the work before nesting begins in April and after fledglings leave in August," Ratté explains.
While the project is still in the planning stages, the environmental impact assessment was recently submitted.
“The professionals involved have truly understood our needs, expectations and concerns,” Ratté emphasizes.
We may still have to explain certain elements to the people within our community, but when people know what’s happening, they can also relate it to family and friends they know from their small community who work in the industry.
Relating a project’s “story” well is imperative to obtaining social licence, Ferrero adds. “It’s how you make people fully understand what it is you’re trying to do and how you’re willing to work with them to achieve mutually beneficial goals,” he says.