PORT TOWNSEND — An air quality advocacy group is raising questions about a proposal to install an incinerator that uses wood chips to generate power at the Port Townsend Paper mill.
The modification will both provide “green” energy and excess electricity that can be sold, says the company.
Members of PT Airwatchers, a Port Townsend air quality advocacy group that has raised questions about the mill’s emissions in the past, say that the project may be “neither clean nor green.”
The state Department of Ecology issued a finding in July that the biomass project, which the mill expects to begin constructing by the end of the year, has no probable significant adverse environmental impact, and a proposed state order that would permit construction is expected to be issued soon.
PT Airwatchers spokesperson Gretchen Brewer said after a Thursday night meeting of the group, attended by about 40 people, that the group “wants to get all the information we can” about whether biomass burning at the mill would be harmful to the environment.
If the group’s questions are answered to members’ satisfaction, it would drop its objections, she said.
PT Airwatchers say that biomass generates pollution, uses more carbon than coal, is inefficient and uses a lot of water to operate.
Group members also said that the process upsets the balance of local forests by using “slash,” loose wooden materials left behind by logging operations or falling to the floor of the forest naturally.
“Biomass just sucks all this material out of the forests,” Brewer said. “It takes away what is needed for forests to regenerate.”
The project, in which the mill’s main boiler would be converted to use waste wood from the Olympic Peninsula, is intended to generate “clean” power while cutting most emissions — although slightly increasing two — and providing enough electricity to sell.
Ecology is expected to issue an order in September or October after reviewing public comment — which closed last Monday. The order would allow the project to proceed.
The waste wood would “come from the forest slash in that vicinity,” much of which is now burned in the field, Merley McCall, manager of the industrial section of the state Department of Ecology, has said.
Ecology’s order sets limits to such pollutants as particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxides and sets carbon monoxide limits, McCall said.
To sell electricity as “green power,” the mill must limit the amount of fuel oil it uses and would use less than it does now, he added.
Washington State University Director Katherine Baril disagrees with PT Airwatchers about the biomass project, which she supports.
“I think the combined examination of the Department of Commerce and the Department of Ecology and the Department of Natural Resources provide a significant amount of oversight,” she said.
“There will be a system in place that will adapt to new information as it becomes available.”
Adapting includes not using “slash” from forests where it was needed for regeneration, and addressing energy sources on a case by case basis, she said.
Strategy to oppose the biomass project was discussed in detail at Thursday’s PT Airwatchers’ meeting. Attendees were assigned tasks, such as writing letters to the newspapers and researching specific questions.
One task was to contact Baril and ask why she supports the project.
Baril said her support is no mystery.
“It’s a good proposal,” she said.
“Port Townsend Paper is a good company, and they are trying to do the right thing.”
Operating by mid-2012
The mill expects to have the new system to be in operation by mid-2012. It would add about $10 million in pollution control equipment as part of the upgrade.
Mill officials have said the project would help the mill retain its existing 209 jobs while creating 108 temporary jobs.
Ecology spokesperson Kim Schmanke, who is supervising the public comment period, said the agency must both consider all key points of the project and decide the matter within proscribed time limits.
Schmanke said that quality standards evolve with time, and new standards are expected sometime in 2011.
Brewer thinks the project should wait until then, questioning whether the “rush” to approve the plant is in anticipation of more stringent standards.
“We want a moratorium on these until policy is decided at the state and federal level, and questions about the effects of these are answered,” she said.
About 100 people have commented on the project, both in writing and at an Aug. 17 public hearing at Fort Worden State Park. Schmanke said the comments are not yet available online.
“Our actions are tightly controlled,” she said. “We are following the rules, and if people disagree with building the project, they should look into changing the rules.”
In October, the Port Townsend Paper Corp. mill was awarded a $2 million Renewable State Energy Program grant from the state Department of Commerce to upgrade its biomass cogeneration boiler and plant.
The state dispersed federal money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Port Townsend Paper also agreed to leverage $53 million in additional funding to match the grant.
The order is posted at http://tinyurl.com/382porh.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.