PORT ANGELES — Opponents of the Nippon Paper Industries USA biomass project in Port Angeles have told the Clallam County Board of Health that the upgraded cogeneration plant will pollute the air.
Some of those speaking at the Tuesday meeting said the 20-megawatt project should be halted until more research is done on the health effects of particulates emitted from hot-burning biomass boilers.
Dr. Tom Locke, public health officer for Clallam and Jefferson counties, said local health boards lack the authority to regulate air quality.
That’s up to federal and stage agencies, Locke told a crowd of more than 40 that attended the monthly health board meeting.
“The local board of health has many responsibilities,” he said, “but air quality is not one of them.
“In fact, local boards of health are pretty much categorically excluded from regulation of industrial air pollution,” he said.
“This board was never given the opportunity to approve or disapprove of projects such as this.”
Nippon is upgrading its cogeneration plant, which burns wood waste to create steam to generate power at the paper mill on Ediz Hook.
It also would be able to sell credits for electricity.
The $71 million project is set to be completed in April 2013.
Environmental groups have appealed the construction permit granted by the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency, or ORCAA, in court.
Nippon mill manager Harold Norlund said the project was reviewed by several agencies, and it “exceeded the permit requirements of ORCAA and the state.”
Environmental groups also have appealed the Port Townsend Paper Corp.’s 25-megawatt biomass upgrade, which the mill says on its website is to be completed this year.
“There’s significant public concern about this issue here in Clallam County — likewise in Port Townsend and Jefferson County,” Locke said.
“It’s something I’ve been looking into intensely for the last several months, and it’s one of those things: The deeper you look into it, the more complex it becomes.”
Ultrafine particles
Penny Burdick, a family physician from Sequim, said ultra-fine particles of soot emitted by biomass generators can travel from the lungs to the bloodstream and damage organs and fetuses.
“I would urge you to investigate the health effects further,” Burdick told the seven-member Clallam County health board.
Francisco de la Cruz, a nine-year resident of eastern Clallam County, said jobs and other benefits of the biomass project need to be balanced against air pollution and increased health care costs.
He urged the health board to support the idea of a moratorium on the biomass plant until more scientific evidence is available.
“To borrow a phrase from the energy side, the best way to conserve energy is to not use it,” de la Cruz said.
“Here, the best way to keep air clean is to not dirty it in the first place.”
Each of the 16 speakers who testified against the project was met with a round of applause.
Nippon officials have said the new boiler will reduce most pollutants at the mill and put forest slash to good use.
Locke said biomass involves energy independence, renewable energy, reducing fossil fuels and impacts of climate change.
“There are economic issues about our local economy and jobs and what may or may not happen in the future,” Locke said.
“That probably is not the purview of the board of health.”
He added: “There very much are health issues involved with all airborne contaminates, including industrial air pollution.
“That’s a very complex and involved area, and it’s not limited by any means to industrial air pollution,” he said.
About 15 percent of air pollution in the state comes from industry, Locke said.
“The better the detection technologies for ultrafine nanoparticles become, the more worrisome the research is,” Locke said.
“There are clearly adverse lung and heart effects, depending on what’s in the pollution.”
Second unit requested
Last week, the Jefferson County Board of Health decided to ask ORCAA and the Port Townsend Paper Corp. mill to add a second air-monitoring unit to increase surveillance of emissions from the plant.
That decision was made after public comments that followed a presentation from the state Department of Ecology on nanoparticles.
Rose Marschall was direct in her remarks to the Clallam County Board of Health.
“I want this stopped now. I’m not asking you to investigate; I’m telling you I want it stopped.”
Local boards of health have regulatory authority over waste disposal and sometimes wastewater, Locke said, but not air.
“That authority is primarily federal through the Clean Air Act, and then a fair amount of it is delegated to states,” Locke said.
“Local boards of health in specific, and for the most part local government, is excluded from regulation of industrial air quality.
“To my understanding of the law, you do not have the authority to tell the mill not to proceed with their cogeneration plant,” Locke said.
“It’s a board that has broad concerns but lacks the specific legal authority people are looking for to derail a project that is quite a ways down the planning scheme of things.”
Board Chairman Bryon Monohon, who also is the Forks mayor, discussed the legacy of mills in Port Angeles.
“When it comes to looking at nanoparticles and the small particles, you are right,” said Monohon, who has a degree in pulp and paper engineering and monitored mill odor for Rayonier in the 1990s.
Monohon noted that coal-, hydro- and wind-generated power all come with environmental costs.
He urged audience members to work cooperatively with Nippon and write letters to Congress to strengthen air-quality standards.
“Nippon — while they come across as the bad guy here — they are operating under the laws of the United States,” Monohon said.
“They’re our laws. We have the power to change them.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
