FORKS — Investors are still considering transforming the shuttered Interfor planer mill into a high-end brewery and bottling plant despite delaying a decision on where to site the plant, a key planner of the project said.
Gig Harbor resident Charles Rau, a water quality specialist, said Friday that he and his business associates have enough funds to complete the project and will decide on a location for the project within about two months, if not sooner.
He told the Peninsula Daily News on Dec. 25 that he expected a decision would be made by mid-January.
“We can’t make a decision until we get other business out of the way,” he said Friday.
Possible locations
Rau has identified the city-owned Interfor mill site at 143 Sitkum-Sol Duc Road — or at a location closer to town — as being suitable for a bottling plant.
Interfor shut down its Forks planer mill and Beaver sawmill in June, eliminating 87 family-wage jobs.
Two other sites in Washington state are in the running for the brewery, Rau said.
But issues still need to be resolved, including transportation and water availability, he said.
“The decision we have made is to discuss this further with the [Clallam County Economic Development Council], and we need more specifics as to who does what and where we can go.”
Bill Greenwood, EDC director, revealed the delay Thursday at the EDC’s regular monthly board meeting.
Greenwood said water and permitting “are serious issues” for Forks and the company that would be brewing beer.
The brewery organizers want “a warm welcome and access to water, and at some reasonable cost,” he added.
Water from the city of Forks’ aquifer would be used for the beer.
“They’d like to think that the people in Forks will welcome them in the sense of helping them get through the necessary permitting processes,” Greenwood said.
“I personally have questions about their ability to finance what they want to do, but those will play out.”
Financing
Rau said he and his associates have the funds to get the brewery project underway.
“We have our own sources to accomplish what we might want to do here,” he said.
“Our company could spend as much as [$5 million to $7 million] to carry this to a workable status,” he said in a Dec. 25 email.
Rau said he is reviewing information on water availability that the company has received from Forks City Attorney-Planner Rod Fleck.
“It may or may not be adequate for our needs,” Rau said.
Rau is involved in water remediation projects related to fracking, a process using high-pressure water to extract oil and natural gas from shale that has sparked environmental concerns.
“We are the guys cleaning up the stuff the fracking started,” he said Friday.
For the brewery project, “there is not fracking involved in any way, shape or form other than similarity in equipment put on site to facilitate the existing water in Forks,” Rau added.
Rau told the PDN on Dec. 25 that the beer’s name would be Rain Forest Brew or Rainforest Brew.
Greenwood said Friday the brewery company’s name will be Eco Cubed.
And in the Dec. 25 email, Rau said Spokane-based Eco Frack Inc. “will have the ‘spin-off’ new company Eco cubed.”
He said this in an email Friday:
“It will not be Eco Cubed or have any ties with Eco Frack Inc. other than licensing of water treatment technologies. Also, it will not be a spin-off new company as previously stated.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.