The company proposing to build a methanol production plant in Tacoma announced on Friday that it has asked the city to pause the environmental review process due to “public concerns.”
The president of Northwest Innovation Works (NWIW), the company behind the plant that is one of three proposed in the Pacific Northwest, issued the statement announcing the pause in the process Friday afternoon. He cited the opposition that has been coming from Tacoma residents as the reason for the pause.
“We have been surprised by the tone and substance of the vocal opposition that has emerged in Tacoma,” NWIW President Murray V. Godley III said in the statement. “To force a facility on a community that does not welcome it would not be consistent with our goals. Therefore, we have decided to pause the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) environmental review process in Tacoma.”
The city of Tacoma has been working since January to gather public comments and feedback about what the scope of the plant’s environmental study should include. Hundreds of local residents from Tacoma and the surrounding areas, including Vashon, have attended two public scoping meetings at the Tacoma Convention Center to voice opinions on the plant. City officials also report that they have received more than 500 emails about the project. Concerns range from the possibility of air and water pollution, to questions about the transparency of the entire process, dating back to when NWIW signed the lease with the Port of Tacoma in the spring of 2014.
With the announcement, tonight’s public meeting has been cancelled. The event was set to be the last of three to gather public input for the environmental scoping process.
Bill Moyer, executive director of Vashon’s environmental activist organization, the Backbone Campaign, took interest in the project. He attended the two public meetings and hired organizers in Tacoma to help spread the word about the proposal.
“We’re definitely looking at this as a victory,” Moyer said Monday. “It went from a done deal to no deal in a matter of months. Ideally, now, Tacoma should say, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ because this represents an extreme disconnect with the citizens of the area, particularly Tacoma.”
Many attendees at the meetings have said that they found out about the plant through social media or through overhearing neighbors’ conversations. Meanwhile, many environmental groups and the city of Federal Way have spoken out against the plant that would manufacture methanol from natural gas. The methanol would then be shipped across the Pacific to China, where it would be turned into a feedstock for plastics.
NWIW has remained committed to its goal of building methanol plants that will use natural gas instead of coal. In the Friday statement, Godley said that the company’s goal is to “build a local industry that contributes to the economy and protects the environment by reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.” The company has also reported that its three plants will operate with new, ultra-low emissions technology, though no specific details about the technology have been made available.
The company has also touted the plant’s job creation qualities, stating that more than 1,000 temporary construction jobs would come to the area during the multi-phase construction period that was slated to begin in 2017. If built, NWIW reports 200 permanent jobs would be created. Members of some local labor unions have voiced their support of the project for this reason.
A draft outlining the scope of the Tacoma plant’s environmental review was released earlier this month and outlined a multitude of topics to be studied, but NWIW’s announcement came one day after the Tacoma Port Commission met for a study session on the proposed plant. Tacoma’s Citizens For a Healthy Bay (CHB) organization tweeted from the Thursday night meeting, and multiple commissioners reportedly acknowledged that the port had not done a good enough job of informing residents on the plant that would be the largest of its kind in the world.
One tweet from CHB’s account reads: “Commissioner (Connie) Bacon: ‘Frankly, we haven’t done a good enough job of getting information out.’”
The statement concludes by reporting that NWIW will “use the next several months to engage the Tacoma community in further dialogue” in hopes to share details and “discuss the environmental and safety procedures we are planning.”
“We thank those who have shown support for our project, especially the working men and women in the building trades, the Port of Tacoma, and many other community leaders,” Godley said. “We remain committed to Tacoma, and will restart the process after assessing the results of our engagement with the community.”
Updates about next steps in the process will be available on the city of Tacoma’s website.
Moyer and other environmental action groups have planned a rally at 5 p.m. tonight in front of the Tacoma Convention Center to celebrate the pause in action and continue to rally against the plant.
