PORT ANGELES — Opponents of a proposed biomass boiler at the Nippon paper mill in Port Angeles will air their concerns about the environmental impacts at a Tuesday forum.
The forum will be on the eve of a Port Angeles Planning Commission public hearing concerning permits for the biomass project, which would burn wood chips or forest slash to create electricity and heat.
No Biomass Burn, a Seattle-based organization that aims to “to expose and confront the myth of sustainable biomass energy,” will conduct a public meeting at the Vern Burton Gymnasium, 308 E. Fourth St., from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Duff Badgley, No Biomass Burn coordinator, said the proposed incinerator is “dirtier than coal” and is based on an “outrageous untruth” about the carbon neutrality of biomass.
On Wednesday, the Port Angeles Planning Commission plans a public hearing on Nippon’s shoreline substantial development and conditional use permit applications. Both are related to the proposed conversion to biomass burning.
The planning commission hearings will begin at 6 p.m. in the Port Angeles City Council chambers, 321 E. Fifth St.
Nippon Paper Industries USA has proposed the $71 million cogeneration plant as a “green energy” project.
Nippon will replace a 1950s-era boiler with a state-of-the-art steam boiler and a turbine generator that will make the company more efficient, reduce overall air pollution and produce 20 megawatts of energy from forestry biomass — the residue from logging operations — that would be sold to power companies.
It is also expected to create more than 20 jobs in the forestry industry.
“This is a good project for us,” said Harold Norlund, Nippon mill manager.
“It’s a good project for Port Angeles. It will lower overall air emissions. It’s better for the environment, and we believe it’s good for this mill as well.”
If the permits are approved, Nippon will seek air quality permits it needs form Olympic Region Clean Air Agency.
Norlund said the company has already submitted an application to ORCAA.
A final Environmental Impact Statement on the biomass project was issued on Sept. 3. The 283-page document is available at www.cityofpa.us/citygovernment.htm.
The city of Port Angeles is the lead agency in the project.
The EIS concludes that “construction and operation of the proposed biomass cogeneration facility would not result in any unavoidable significant adverse impacts on the environment. . . . Once construction has been completed, the project would result in beneficial effects to the environment during operation, and no long-term mitigation would be required.”
Opponents take a different view.
Air, water and soil pollution — and the loss of nutrient-rich biomass in the forest — isn’t worth a “devil’s bargain” trade for green energy, said Diana Somerville of Port Angeles, a member of the National Association of Science Writers and the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
“We don’t know what other kinds of compounds get released into the air,” Somerville said.
“Commercial incinerators create higher temperatures than a basic fireplace and they get different kinds of chemical reactions.”
“Pollution in the air is a really big concern.”
She added that the plant will generate waste heat.
“The biggest thing is they’re selling this as green energy, and there is very serious scientific debate about whether there is a net gain at all,” Somerville said.
Somerville and others worry that biomass facilities will adversely affect forests.
“I just have this vision of our forest being picked cleaned,” Somerville said, referring to the proposed or existing biomass units in Port Angeles, Port Townsend, Forks and Grays Harbor County, as well as a large facility proposed in Shelton.
Badgley, a 65-year-old citizen’s activist, said the project is “not carbon neutral.”
“Chief among the pollutants is particulate matter,” Badgley said.
“I will have a detailed analysis of dangers [in the presentation}.
Expose to particulate matter emitted from the proposed project “should be alarming news to people who live in the 40- to 50-mile vicinity,” Badgley said.
No Biomass Burn opposes five proposed biomass projects in Clallam, Jefferson, Mason and Thurston counties.
Badgley said the state of Washington is moving in the opposite direction of science in its support and financial incentives for biomass projects like Nippon’s proposed plant.
“There’s been a real sea change in the last couple years of how scientists and the [federal] government regard biomass projects,” Badgley said.
Norlund said opponents of the Nippon co-generation plant “may not be familiar our project.”
“It results in less air pollution than today,” he said.
In addition to the heat and electricity the cogeneration plant will produce, Norlund said there will be less controlled burning in the forests of the North Olympic Peninsula.
“It’s being built to meet the new requirements.”
Norlund said he encourages public input — both pro and con — about the project.
He announced the project in early August after it was approved by the board of directors of Nippon Paper Group, Nippon USA’s parent company, in Tokyo, Japan.
The Port Angeles mill makes paper used for telephone books, other custom paper and newsprint. It employs about 200 people.
Beyond the shoreline substantial development permit, Port Angeles requires a conditional use permit, building permits and possibly a noise variance.
The state requires an air quality notice of construction order of approval, air operating permit modification, a waste discharge permit and a construction stormwater permit.
If all of the permits are approved, construction on Nippin’s cogeneration plant will begin in December.
Badgley said the proposed incinerator on Marine Drive would emit 200,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.
He also said that the biomass incinerator would emit more particulates and nitrogen oxide pollution than a coal-burner per unit of energy produced.
Norlund said it is estimated that the new boiler would result in a 19 percent overall net reduction of pollutants from the company’s paper-making process, with significant decline in major pollutants such as carbon monoxide, particulate matter and sulfur dioxide.
Earlier this year, the state Department of Natural Resources selected Nippon as one of four Forest Biomass Initiative partners to use forest residuals from state lands for green energy projects on a pilot basis.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
