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An estimated 1,000 people descended on the Tacoma Convention Center Thursday night to voice their opinions about a proposed methanol production plant in Tacoma, and two clear sides of the issue emerged.

The meeting was called with the intention to collect public input about the scope of the environmental study to be conducted by the city of Tacoma during an expected yearlong process.

However, only some of the public speakers suggested factors to be addressed in the study. Most voiced opinions on why the plant should or should not be built.

Opponents of the plant cited pollution and other environmental concerns along with potentially decreased home values and health issues as reasons the plant should not be built. Proponents, largely representing the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Commission and Boilermakers Local 502 unions, said the plant would bring desperately needed living-wage jobs to the area.

A crowd had packed the convention center’s 400-seat room by 5:30 p.m., one hour before the meeting was set to begin, forcing hundreds into an overflow room and even more left standing in the hallway. The meeting started early as Tacoma Fire Department firefighters told the crowd that the room was at capacity, leaving hundreds of frustrated people calling for future meetings to be better organized.

For many Tacoma residents, the capacity issue was a snapshot of the larger picture of frustration about transparency among the public, the city and the Port of Tacoma. Many residents said they felt authorities were not transparent in the decision to bring the plant to the port.

One such resident is Ellen Moore, a commissioner with the city’s Sustainable Tacoma Commission (STC). Before announcing her resignation from STC, she said she found out about the plant through social media. Her speech brought cheers and applause from hundreds in the room.

“Methanol was never brought to STC’s attention,” Moore said. “As a commissioner, I and others, found out about the plant on Facebook, which is troubling given that we were created by the city of Tacoma to advise it on matters of sustainability,” Moore said. “STC’s role is incredibly limited. While it should act as a watchdog for sustainability matters, it has little power, and the city rarely, if ever, seeks us out to advise it on environmental matters. That important (advising) job is left to (the) planning and development (departments), which is a complete conflict of interest. Convince us this is not a done deal.”

The 125-acre, $3.4 billion methanol production plant is being proposed by Northwest Innovation Works (NWIW), a company backed by the Chinese government and Chinese investors. If built, the plant would be the largest of its kind in the world, and would sit on the former Kaiser aluminum smelter site. While operational, the plant world convert natural gas into the colorless, flammable alcohol called methanol. In the process, more than 7,200 gallons of water would be used every minute.

With four methanol production lines, each with a production capacity of 5,000 metric tons per day, a total of 20,000 metric tons of methanol per day would be produced and loaded onto ships to be taken to China. In China, the methanol will be converted to olefins, a feedstock for plastic used in items from cell phone cases to contact lenses and carpet fibers.

NWIW officials say the plant, one of three proposed in the Pacific Northwest region, would be a more environmentally friendly alternative to China’s coal-based methanol production. The factory would bring jobs to the area: more than 1,000 temporary construction jobs, and then more than 200 permanent jobs once the plant is complete. Construction is expected to begin in late 2017 or early 2018.

NWIW signed a lease with the Port of Tacoma in spring 2014 to build the plant and begin the permitting process.

Thursday’s meeting was one of the first steps in that process.

In a sea of Tacoma residents, Vashon was represented by Bill Moyer, executive director of the island’s environmental advocacy group, the Backbone Campaign.

“As a resident of Vashon, I don’t believe a scoping process that doesn’t include us is adequate,” Moyer said. “As a person from Vashon, considering us and the impact Tacoma’s industrial follies have had on us, especially ASARCO, it’s obscene to think that they could repeat something like that.”

Tony Warfield, senior project manager at the Port of Tacoma said that the port bought the former Kaiser aluminum smelter in 2003 with the expressed interest of cleaning up the polluted site and putting it back to work. Warfield said the port has spent $33 million cleaning up the site. Washington Department of Ecology officials said the cleanup of the site was completed last year.

Warfield said that he believed the environmental impact study should only focus on environmental effects to Pierce County.

Warfield was one of a few public speakers who suggested factors to be addressed in the environmental study. Karen Gogins from Tacoma’s Citizens for a Healthy Bay was another who addressed the factors. She asked the city to consider the plant’s wastewater pollutants, air pollution, types of storage tanks, plans for accidental spills or discharges and the frequency of shipping and the environmental effects of those ships.

Many of the labor officials who voiced concerns made it clear that they also were concerned about the environment, but felt the environmental oversight in the United States would guarantee the plant would be cleaner and safer than if it were built in China.

“It’s important we take the environment into account,” Michael Anthony, a member of Boilermakers Local 502 said. “I’m not saying put jobs ahead of the environment. I believe we can have both. I don’t want this overseas in China.”

Dennis Callies, business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 76, said that the union would not stand by and “watch something unsafe happen.”

“I will not support something that will endanger workers,” Callies said. “The best oversight is here in America. (The plant) will put trade apprentices to work. If we don’t have industry, this town will die.”

Tacoma resident Jimmy Osborne also said he believes the plant’s state-of-the-art technology will make it safe. He called upon residents to not let their fear of the unknown shape their decisions.

But Tacoma resident Bill Kupinse said that state-of-the-art does not mean safety and many things believed to be so have failed in the past.

“What did Fukushima, the Titanic and Chernobyl all have in common? They were all state-of the-art,” Kupinse said. “So, when I read that the plant will be protected by state-of-the-art technology, I don’t believe it.”

Supporters pointed out that the land being proposed for the plant is already zoned for heavy industry, so there is nothing else the land would be used for.

Perhaps the largest concern by those opposing the plant was the amount of water the plant would require. With more than 10 million gallons expected to be used every day, residents voiced concerns over the source of the water.

Tacoma’s major watershed is the Green River, a known habitat for Coho and Chinook salmon.

City residents last summer were asked to cut back on water use, raising questions about where the millions of gallons of water needed every day for the plant would come from.

NWIW has said the company is looking into the use of gray water to run the plant, but skeptics question whether the suggestion is true.

“We need an enforceable commitment in writing that Northwest Innovation Works will use gray water,” Kupinse said.

The city will take the hundreds of comments made at Thursday’s meeting and draft guidelines for the environmental study. The guidelines are scheduled to be released on the city’s website by Feb. 5.

Principal Planner for the city of Tacoma, Ian Munce, said that he and his staff are committed to getting the draft out by the beginning of February. He said the process will turn now to distilling the roughly 350 comment forms filled out at the meeting along with the just as many emails about the subject sent to him.

A second meeting to gather public comment on the draft scope is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10, at the Tacoma Convention Center, 1500 Broadway. The third and final meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 16 at Meeker Middle School, 4402 Nassau Avenue NE. The purpose of the meetings are to accept comments on the draft scope of the environmental review, provide information about the proposed project and provide an opportunity for public comment.

“We’re hoping to get much more focused comments to see if we’re at all close to what people are asking for,” Munce said.

The scoping process deadline has been extended to 5 p.m. March 4. Comments may be submitted at the scoping meetings or e-mailed to Tacoma.methanol.sepa@cityoftacoma.org.

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