Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 4, April 2004

Copyright 2004 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article below in your research. Be sure to cite the Seattle Sun as your source.

Ballard Oil owner works

to protect fishing industry

By JAMES BUSH

It's located just several hundred feet as the crow flies from the busy intersection of NW Market Street and 24th Avenue NW in Ballard's central business district, but the Ballard Oil Co. hasn't changed much since its founding 67 years ago.

The company's familiar trucks bring heating oil to some 1,500 customers. It also distributes lubricants throughout Seattle, sells centrifuges (used to clean fuel) for commercial fishing boats, and maintains temporary moorage for the fishing fleet, but Ballard Oil's real focus is its maritime refueling operation, says owner Warren Aakervik.

"It has always been the home of the Seattle fishing industry, since day one," says Aakervik, whose father, Warren "Bud" Aakervik, came to work at Ballard Oil in 1946.

Fifteen years later, Bud and two partners purchased the business from founder Bob Stewart.

When Warren went to Alaska with his uncle in 1961, he found that Ballard Oil and Bud Aakervik were household names among fishermen. "I found only one guy that didn't know my Dad," he says.

By 1975, Bud had bought out his partners to become Ballard Oil's sole owner. Warren Aakervik purchased the operation from his father in 1986.

But, despite working at his family business, where he boasts that "We just have fun every day," Aakervik often has bigger fish to fry. "I quit working for me and this company ten years ago," he says. "I work for this state and this community."

His mission is to educate both government officials and the general public in the economic value of the fishing fleet. "I have a job to do," he says. "I have to help attract a billion dollar industry here, so they have a place to go."

Which explains why Aakervik was in Olympia in February, testifying before the state Legislature in opposition to a pair of bills aimed at tightening refueling rules. Calling the legislation "a knee-jerk reaction" to a recent spill at Point Wells, Aakervik used argued that the proposed law was unnecessary. According to the U.S. Coast Guard's list of 2002 spills, the biggest source was private and recreational vessels (some 6,006 gallons spilled), which wouldn't be affected by the legislation. Fixed refueling facilities (just 51 gallons) sit at the very bottom of the list.

Perhaps Aakervik's intervention helped. A substitute bill was approved by the Legislature, but it had been scaled back to a proposal simply calling for future Department of Ecology rule-making on refueling operations. And several DOE officials approached Aakervik at the hearing to assure him that they'll ask for his comments before proposing future legislation. He wonders what took them so long.

"I believe the state Department Of Ecology and the Legislature have not done their job by making use of information that is readily available," he says. "If you had a resource that knows everything about what you do, I'd use it."

It's not the first time Aakervik has disagreed with new government rules that he feels don't make sense. When a law was passed mandating that only certified electricians could do furnace repairs, Aakervik, who has been fixing furnaces for years, simply took the certification test without a moment's study. He passed easily.

But the majority of his activism takes place closer to home, where he has been active in the Seattle Marine Business Coalition, planning efforts in the Ballard-Interbay industrial area, and is the current president of the Ballard District Council.

He's gotten some attention from City Hall: a city-compiled economic impact study on the financial benefits provided by the fishing fleet is near completion. But he's disappointed with last April's City Council vote in favor of bringing the Burke-Gilman Trail through the industrial area. Although the extension has not yet been funded, Aakervik says that building a bicycle and pedestrian trail along the south sidewalk of Market Street (between 24th Avenue NW and the Ballard Locks) would mean that his trucks would have to cross the trail many times each day. He shows visitors a series of photographs showing how trucks have no choice but to block the trail when entering Market Street and demonstrating how difficult it is to see bicycles from the cab of a large truck.

Aakervik knows from experience. He was featured driving one of his company's trucks in a promotional video for the Ballard-Interbay industrial area. When the video was screened, he was surprised to see a bicyclist tagging along next to his truck for part of the trip. "I tell you honestly, to this day, I don't remember that bicyclist being there," he says.

While Aakervik has every intention of continuing his fight to protect the fishing industry, he acknowledges that it's a fight he could lose. But he'd love to see his four grandsons continue his service to the fleet. "One hundred years from now," he says, "I want this place to still be here doing what it's doing."

In order to accomplish that, he'll need some help from the public, but he thinks he'll get it.

"I really do believe in the people," Aakervik says. "I have the faith that people are going to start thinking and listening."