PORT ANGELES — Seven environmental groups who oppose a $71 million biomass expansion project under construction at Nippon Paper Industries Inc.’s Ediz Hook plant are pondering their next move after an appeal was rejected in Thurston County Superior Court.
Judge James Dixon on Friday rejected an appeal of the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency’s permit for the plant, which is slated for completion in April 2013.
He granted a motion for summary judgment that stops the appeal in its tracks, prevents the issue from proceeding to trial in Dixon’s court and sets up a possible future appeal to the state Court of Appeals.
The challenge was filed by Protect the Peninsula’s Future, PT AirWatchers, the North Olympic Group of the Sierra Club, No Biomass Burn, World Temperate Rainforest Network, the Olympic Forest Coalition and the Olympic Environmental Council.
It was filed against the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency — or ORCAA — the state Department of Ecology and Nippon in response to the state Pollution Control Hearings Board action upholding ORCAA’s permit.
Dixon’s opinion likely will be issued by June 22, Dixon’s judicial assistant, Debbie Requa, said Tuesday.
Bob Lynette of Sequim, who represents Protect the Peninsula’s Future and the Sierra Club chapter, said Monday a decision would be made on filing an appeal to the state Court of Appeals after Dixon releases his written opinion.
The groups who filed the appeal “need to read the written opinion before we can say anything,” Lynette said.
But Nippon was left “very pleased” by the ruling, mill manager Harold Norlund said Monday.
The biomass project’s 100-foot-tall boiler, which will arrive in Port Angeles in about 250 truckloads — and be assembled truckload by truckload — will be erected beginning in about three weeks, Norlund said.
“Every appeal all the way through this has been won,” Norlund said.
“Not only are we confident that we’ve got really good equipment and the right equipment for the job, the steel for the boiler is being assembled, and it’s going to be here in a few days.”
Lynette said existing regulations do not guard against tiny ultra-fine particles that are far smaller than the size of particles that are regulated but will still be produced by the high-temperature burning of biomass — wood waste — to produce steam that turns a turbine to produce electricity.
“Our basic position is very simple,” Lynette said.
“The regulations that exist today simply don’t protect public health.”
Biomass opponents have said that ultra-fine particles can damage health but are not separately regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.
They have fought both the Nippon biomass expansion and a $55 million upgrade at the Port Townsend Paper Corp. mill.
Norlund said the final exhaust out of the boiler goes through various pollution-control devices to limit pollution as much as possible.
“Those are regulations that ORCAA and Ecology set,” Norlund said.
“If you want to change the law, go to legislation,” he said.
“Why penalize us for following the regulations? We always knew we had a good project. It’s curious why all these appeals are going on when it’s clear that this [project] was done properly.”
The hearings board had upheld — also on summary judgment — the Clean Air Agency’s determination that Nippon used “best available control technology” for pollutants that will be emitted by Nippon’s plant.
The opponents said in their opening brief that the new boiler “consists merely of good combustion practices and outdated add-on technology that has been in use for three decades.”
The failure to require Nippon to employ more modern technology that would “significantly reduce” the release of volatile organic compounds violates the state Clean Air Act, the brief said, arguing that Nippon would not be able to meet state and federal pollution emission limits.
But speculation about whether Nippon meets emission requirements “is beside the point,” Ecology said in a responding brief.
The agency said Nippon must monitor pollution emissions, and if Nippon cannot meet emission limits, those limits will be re-evaluated.
Ecology can then determine if another permit — a prevention-of-significant-deterioration permit — will be required, the agency said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
