New Resolve Needed To End Hotel Standoff

‘It’s time for Washington Water Power Co. to take off the PR hat, and put on a cleanup hat,” declares the owner of the Davenport Hotel.

“I will make it easy for them,” offers Ronald Wai Choi Ng.

To facilitate cleanup of the utility’s oil spill in the Davenport district and get restoration of the long-shuttered grand hotel back on track, Ng says, he will drop a damage lawsuit.

But only if WWP will either:

One - reimburse his costs owing to the oil leak, buy the hotel at no profit to him, clean up the contamination, and restore the hotel for the community.

Or two - begin to clean up the contamination and “guarantee” a restoration bank-loan against any and all losses owing to contamination from the spill, thereby enabling him to reopen and operate the hotel in order to repay the loan.

Financial feasibility studies conducted by a highly respected consulting firm show the project is viable, according to Ng.

He has made the above offers to WWP, and gotten no response, Ng says.

WWP caused this problem, Ng argues, not just for him, but for neighboring property owners, for downtown, and for countless Inland Northwest citizens who cherish this hotel as part of their cultural heritage.

So, he says, it’s up to WWP to solve the problem. Not dump it on others.

But the power company keeps acting like he’s the problem - not their oil spill.

The decades-old leak from WWP’s central steam-heat plant was first unearthed in 1982. WWP reported it to agents of the state, but not to property owners or the public. It was estimated at a thousands gallons or so. News of the spill finally came out in 1993, and it’s 75,000 gallons or more!

Since then, WWP has continued to minimize the size and importance of the spill. The utility has stalled. It has sloughed off responsibility. It has attacked the credibility of others.

Finally, after two years of rancorous hassle, WWP now offers to try to dam up the spill underground, and use various methods to try to reduce the oil in the earth. But any real action still depends on the outcome of various hearings and state approval.

Nevertheless, WWP says it expects sometime next year to start actually trying to clean up the downtown mess it has passed off as inconsequential for so long. How long it will take to end the threat is anybody’s guess.

Meantime, Ng contends in his suit and in person that he can’t get about $20 million of bank financing he needs to restore and reopen the architectural masterpiece. Bankers won’t lend, he says, on a property threatened by environmental contamination.

Ng says he had a restoration loan locked up, but the lender banked off when he had to disclose WWP’s oil spill.

But WWP pooh-poohs this. The company has offered to indemnify property owners against loss. So what’s the problem? If the property owners are covered, the bankers are covered too in effect - aren’t they?

Not really, says Ng, whose background includes banking experience. Bankers steer clear of projects that stand a good chance of embroiling them in litigation if there is a loan default, and they end up stuck with a property. Bankers are lenders - not hotel operators or real estate speculators. So standard practices and policies preclude buying legal problems.

To my knowledge, this is, indeed, a fact. At least, this is a point bankers have impressed upon me for years. So now I have to believe what they told me applies in this case.

Whatever, there’s an easy way to resolve the dispute. All WWP has to do is guarantee the loan, says Ng, and he will proceed forthwith on work to reopen the hotel.

The Davenport owners aren’t the only parties given the brushoff by WWP on this oil spill.

Another who was frustrated by delays is Jim Hill, proprietor of the Someplace Else pub-restaurant. He tried to buy the long-vacant steam plant - an architectural classic designed by the celebrated Kirtland Cutter - and convert it into a grand dining attraction.

As I wrote in a column at the time: “He and others envision the restaurant as both the catalyst and the signature project of Steam Plant Alley - four blocks of specialty shops, dining spots, artscapes, sidewalk furnishings, old time streetlights, and plantings.”

But as sometimes happens in large companies with their own legal staff and lots of time on their hands, decisions can drag on forever. He said he and the company exchanged 10 different offers.

More than once Hill told me he thought they had an agreement. More than once, he said efforts appeared hopeless.

Once - before the size and impact of the oil spill were disclosed - Hill told me WWP almost seemed to be toying with him. Hill said, and I reported in this column, “WWP tried to palm off liability for possible environmental cleanup costs running into the millions.”

Finally he told me, “After 13 months of blood, sweat and tears, I give up.”

The collapse of this effort was catastrophic for the Davenport district.

When I inquired into the failure of negotiations, WWP officials made out like Hill’s business plan and purchase offers simply didn’t add up. As to sticking him with liability for a major oil spill - hah! What major oil spill?

A few months later, the truth came out.

At this point, whether or not the owners of the hotel can secure bank financing under these circumstances is moot. The oil spill is real. It’s debilitating. It’s the company’s fault. Period.

It would be far better for all concerned if the Davenport and WWP a private utility regulated by the state in the public interest - were to settle out of court. Years of legalistic stonewalling and jockeying would exact a horrific toll on the physical condition of an Inland Northwest cultural institution, on downtown redevelopment, and on the entire community.

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel’s column appears on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review