PORT ANGELES — Both candidates for the 24th Legislative District Position 2 seat in the state House of Representatives said Monday they support a biomass project at the Port Angeles paper mill.

Democrat Steve Tharinger and Republican Jim McEntire were asked about the $71 million cogeneration plant that will turn residual wood waste into heat and electricity at the Nippon Paper Industries USA Inc. mill during a political forum at the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Port Angeles CrabHouse Restaurant.

“I’m very strongly in favor of that,” McEntire said.

“It’s not only a win for the environment on a net basis — it will result in a much more efficient way of using product fuel and other so-called urban woods, reducing many of the components of air pollution — but it’s a win for the economy, too.

“It’s a way of making sure that the business model that Nippon enjoys is extended so that their economic position in the community is solidified. I think it’s a win all the way around.”

McEntire is one of three Port of Port Angeles commissioners.

Tharinger is one of three Clallam County commissioners.

Seek to fill vacancy

They will face off in the Nov. 2 general election in what shapes up to be a close race for the seat being vacated by retiring House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler of Hoquiam.

The 24th District covers Clallam and Jefferson counties and part of Grays Harbor County.

Nippon’s cogeneration project has been challenged by a coalition of seven environmental groups.

Some environmentalists believe the process is not sustainable, that it threatens forest health and would lead to air pollution.

Biomass projects are encouraged by a federal tax credit and demands for renewable energy.

“Here on the North Peninsula, we’re probably one of the best places on the planet to grow trees, and it seems to me to be able to use that resource to generate energy makes a lot of sense,” Tharinger said.

Tharinger said the notion that the forests can’t be managed is “not a serious challenge” because of existing forest practice guidelines.

“There’s some discussion that it can concentrate small particulate matter, dioxins and other things, and I’m just not convinced with that science that states that,” Tharinger said, adding that technology will help address that issue.

“I see it as a real opportunity.”

A 30-year county resident and a former chairman of the Clallam County Planning Commission, Tharinger, 61, ran unsuccessfully for county commissioner in 1995 and was elected in 1999.

“For the last 11 years the county, I think, has a good record,” Tharinger said.

“We’ve been able to be very fiscally responsible while delivering services and managing our budgets, and we’ve been able to maintain those services by taking the long view.”

Tharinger, who plans to keep his elected county position if elected to the Legislature, said the county board has tried to take election cycles and changing economic conditions out of its process.

The county saved up a pool of reserves in the middle of the last decade. Clallam County has used those reserves in recent years to balance the budget and sustain essential services.

“The other thing we’ve done is we’ve taken partisanship out of the commissioners’ office,” Tharinger said.

“I think our record shows that we’ve been pretty successful, being one of two counties that doesn’t have any debt.”

Fiscal conservative

McEntire, a 60-year-old retired Coast Guard captain and first-term Port of Port Angeles commissioner, emphasized a fiscally conservative political philosophy.

“We need, as a state government, to take a very hard look at the entire universe of things, both from the tax angle and from the regulatory angle, that stand in the way of business formation and growth,” he said.

McEntire, who has said he will resign from the port commission if elected to the Legislature, said the private sector will lead the state out of its economic difficulties, adding that he is “not so sure that we should settle” for diminished expectations in a tough economy.

“After all, we are Americans,” he said. “We can do whatever it is that we set our minds to.”

In nearly three years as a port commissioner, McEntire said his top projects to date included the unsuccessful attempt to attract a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fleet to Port Angeles, the opening of Peninsula Plywood mill and the Harbor-Works Public Development Authority.

Harbor-Works, which is disbanding, tried to clean up and redevelop the contaminated former Rayonier mill site on the Port Angeles waterfront.

“I’m very proud of that effort to involve the city and the port directly after darn near a decade of just kind of watching from the sidelines,” McEntire said.

“The city had been involved at various points along the way but the port had not. This was an effort to actually achieve not only an economic win but an environmental win.

“After all, the objective of Harbor-Works was to get the ground cleaned up. That’s what Ecology’s mission supposedly is.

“We were defeated by kind of a lack of political support from Olympia, and the determination of the Department of Ecology to continue on with three additional years of paperwork instead of an early termination of the paperwork and a focus on results.”

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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.