OLYMPIA — In a plea to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee to stop projects like the proposed $2 billion Kalama methanol plant, about 100 people gathered at the state Capitol on Thursday to oppose manufacturing facilities that use fracked natural gas.
Kalama resident Charlene DesRosier, a speaker at the event, said her home is the closest private residence to the proposed plant, which is proposed for the north end of the Port of Kalama. Her business, Camp Kalama RV Park and Campground, is the closest non-industrial business to the plant.
“I feel like I have a lot at stake if we can’t stop this. And our community has a lot at stake if we can’t stop this,” she said.
Speakers and organizers specifically called out the Tacoma LNG project and the proposed $2 billion methanol plant that Northwest Innovation Works (NWIW) aims to build at the Port of Kalama.
Environmentalist group Columbia Riverkeeper, which organized the rally, said it also delivered 130,000 public comments to the Governor’s Office opposing “fracked” gas projects. Fracking is the controversial process of drilling into the ground and then injecting a high-pressure water mixture into the rock to release the natural gas inside.
DesRosier said she was concerned about potential environmental, health and tourism impacts of the plant on the community.
“Kalama is not a town that is burned out with businesses closed down and people moving out of the community. It is not a town that needs to be saved, grasping at any business to help it survive. In fact, it’s quite the contrary. We have new businesses coming to town,” DesRosier told the crowd. “We should be encouraging this movement, not putting in a business that would be a negative when people investigate moving to or visiting our community.”
NWIW plans to convert natural gas into methanol, a key ingredient in plastics manufacturing, which would then be shipped to Asia. Chief Commercial Officer and General Counsel Kent Caputo said the rally was a form of communication that NWIW wants to be a part of.
Over time, Caputo said, it’s necessary to find alternatives to natural gas. But the methanol plant is a step in the right direction, he said.
“We’re trying to move beyond coal. We’re trying to use natural gas in the most responsible and forward-leaning way possible to be part of creating the products that people use every day at an ever-increasing pace,” Caputo told The Daily News. “We have to use the resources we have in the most responsible way we can at a scale that can have a positive impact right now.”
