PORT TOWNSEND — The state and the Navy are among those who criticized a draft environmental impact statement for a project nicknamed “pit-to-pier.”
The Jefferson County Department of Community Development received about 260 public comments in response to the draft statement for a proposal to build a 4-mile-long conveyor belt and a 998-foot pier on the Hood Canal to move gravel from a quarry to ships.
The deadline for public comment on the draft was Monday.
Comments will be cataloged, analyzed and entered into a matrix before incorporating them into a final environmental impact statement, expected for completion sometime this year, according to planner David Wayne Johnson, who is managing the process.
Thorndyke Resources Operation Complex, affiliated with Hood Canal Sand and Gravel, wants to build a pier on state-owned tidelands 5 miles south of the Hood Canal Bridge to annually load onto barges some 6.75 million tons of gravel that would be transported from a quarry at Shine.
After the final environmental impact statement is finished, the Jefferson County hearings examiner will consider a county shoreline conditional-use permit for the proposed pier and loading dock and a zoning conditional-use permit for the proposed conveyor to transport material to the pier.
The permit process for the pit-to-pier project was begun in 2003 by Fred Hill Materials. After Fred Hill’s 2012 bankruptcy, Thorndyke, a Poulsbo company, took over the project.
The project is expected to create some 2,000 jobs, according to the company.
While the project has generated opposition from conservation groups, public comment was taken only on the draft environmental impact statement, with opinions for or against not accepted.
About 95 percent of the comments he has read were critical of the draft document, Johnson said.
The main concerns are the noise that would be generated and the potential impact, including collisions, of the multiple daily Hood Canal Bridge openings required by up to six barges a day, he said.
The Navy requested a course of action for landslides or tsunamis and a need to address the possibilities of invasive species attached to barges that are brought into the canal.
DNR requested a more thorough analysis of potential air-quality levels and an opinion that dust-suppression sprays be kept clear of surface water.
“The ‘Pit to Pier’ project cannot be authorized as currently proposed because it is incompatible with existing uses of state-owned aquatic lands,” DNR said in a comment signed by Megan Duffy, deputy supervisor for aquatics and geology.
The Navy comment, signed by Commander T.A. Zwolfer, says the document lacks an adequate analysis of the possible environmental impact.
“Descriptions of potential impacts are general, rarely (if ever) quantified and mitigation descriptions are often limited to vague statements that actions must comply with federal, state and local regulations rather than how compliance and mitigation can be achieved,” the comment said.
DNR and the Navy are allied by a 55-year conservation easement that would block commercial or industrial development of more than 4,800 acres of state-owned tidelands along Hood Canal, including the property south of the floating bridge where the pier would be sited.
The Navy paid DNR $720,000 for the easement, which restricts development in the area around Naval Base Kitsap and gives the Navy unrestricted access to waters for military exercises.
Thorndyke has challenged the legality of the easement agreement, filing suit Aug. 5 in Jefferson County Superior Court in a claim that it violates the company’s rights to develop a gravel export facility in “arbitrary and capricious” ways.
The company asked the court to nullify the easement and order that the company has preserved rights to develop the property.
The suit also asks the court for an injunction preventing the state and Navy from enforcing the easement.
The full text of the 383-page draft environmental impact statement is available at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-Pit-to-Pier and at the Jefferson County Department of Community Development, 621 Sheridan St., Port Townsend. The phone number is 360-379-4940.
Electronic copies of the draft document can be downloaded at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-draftstatement.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
