MUKILTEO — Access to Edgewater Beach, which has been closed since December, resumed this week with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday.
The beach is on the former U.S. Air Force tank property.
“We’ve been working since 1999 to get the tank farm property turned over to the local community,” Lisa Lefeber, a spokeswoman for the Port of Everett, said before the event.
The Mukilteo City Council approved the transfer of seven acres in and around the former tank farm from the port to the city earlier this year.
Access to Edgewater Beach was closed while the port built a road to provide access both to the beach and to the Mount Baker terminal by port employees, Lefeber said.
The $2 million road project included landscaping, installation of utilities and an interpretive sign about the aerospace industry next to the Mount Baker Terminal, the port’s aerospace facility.
“That road is a critical piece in providing public access to the site” for vehicles and pedestrians, she said.
The port has been working since 2005 to get legal public access to the beach. “It’s really exciting to see the property being accessible to be used by the Mukilteo community,” Lefeber said. “It’s a good milestone to be able to get people back to that waterfront.”
The port built a small parking lot and added 1,100 linear feet of beach to the property in 2005 as part of the construction of the Mount Baker Terminal, which opened in 2008.
Due to the Air Force’s long use of the land, the newly built road provides the first public access through the tank farm property in 75 years, Lefeber said.
Sharon Salyer: 4235-339-3486; salyer@heraldnet.com.
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