LONGVIEW — The Port of Kalama is dropping its appeal of the state’s shoreline permit for the Kalama methanol plant. The action removes a major challenge to the permit, but it still faces opposition from environmental groups.
The port had opposed the permit because it worried it would require it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at its marine terminal, which would serve the methanol plant. However, the port dropped the appeal when it learned recently that the reduction requirements apply only to the plant, not its docks.
“We do not oppose regulations of greenhouse gas emissions,” Mark Wilson, executive director of Port of Kalama, announced in a press release Friday. “Ecology’s clarification of their position has addressed the concerns that triggered the port’s appeal.”
The permit still faces a challenge by Columbia Riverkeeper, Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity. Their appeal argues that the shoreline permits “fail to address threats to climate, safety and public health.”
The same groups, represented by attorneys from Earthjustice, also appealed the adequacy of the environmental impact statement of the project last October. The two concurrent appeals will both be heard by the state Shorelines Hearing Board, according to Columbia Riverkeeper.
A hearing likely will be scheduled in the second week of October in front of the state’s Shorelines Hearings Board, according to Ecology.
Ecology approved two related shoreline permits for the methanol plant in early June. The department largely upheld several of the conditions included in a shoreline permit issued by Cowlitz County earlier this year, and it added new conditions to gradually reduce the plant’s greenhouse emissions over time.
The permits don’t reduce the plant’s greenhouse emissions much beyond what the plant must achieve under the state’s new Clean Air Rule, which have been challenged. Nevertheless, Ecology took the Clean Air Rule standards and incorporated them into Northwest Innovation’s shoreline permits itself. So even if the courts dismantle the Clean Air Rule, Northwest Innovation must still reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 1.7 percent annually until 2035. As an alternative, it could purchase credits to offset emissions or invest in projects that contribute to emission reductions.
With an estimated 1.24 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually, the methanol plant would be among the state’s top greenhouse gas emitters. It would release the equivalent emissions of 260,000 passenger cars annually, boosting the state’s annual greenhouse emissions by 1.28 percent.
Northwest Innovation Works already plans to use a new ultra-low emissions technology, which reduces greenhouse gases by 31 percent compared to the traditional method of methanol manufacturing. Proponents also argue that the plant’s natural gas-based methanol will reduce China’s reliance on coal-based methanol for producing plastics. Beyond air emissions, the company also is recycling industrial wastewater in its production process so that it can avoid releasing any treated wastewater into the Columbia River.
The plant is projected to employ nearly 200 full-time workers and create about 1,000 construction jobs.
