A proposal to build a $3.4 billion methanol production plant at the Port of Tacoma is no more after the company backing the project announced that it terminated its lease at the port.
Northwest Innovation Works (NWIW) released a statement last Tuesday reporting that after two years of work and exactly two months after pausing the environmental scoping process for the plant that would have been the largest of its kind in the world, it had terminated the lease for the former Kaiser aluminum smelter site.
The company is still moving forward with two similar but smaller projects at the Port of Kalama in Washington and the Port of St. Helens in northern Oregon.
“While we do not see a way forward with the Port of Tacoma to realize this vision at this location, we remain committed to building facilities that offer a cleaner way to make products necessary for daily life, and to investing billions in local communities in the Pacific Northwest,” Vee Godley, NWIW President said in the statement.
NWIW cited three “business considerations particular to the Port of Tacoma” for its termination of the lease: the polluted Kaiser site that was the proposed area for the plant, inadequate time to conduct an environmental analysis and the potential for zoning changes.
“Only careful planning, additional research, and the right regulatory approach would allow the development of a heavy industrial use on such a site,” the statement reads. “Developing that approach has taken longer than anticipated, and the process currently in place to resolve pending questions promises still to be a long one,” the statement said.
NWIW estimated it would need another three years to “perform the necessary due diligence, public process, and environmental analysis.”
The company has come under heavy criticism for the project. Multiple public meetings held earlier this year in Tacoma drew thousands of opponents who voiced concerns over the possible, and still largely unknown, air and water pollutants that would come from the plant along with the massive water and electricity needs. It was estimated that the plant would consume 10.4 million gallons of water and require 450 megawatts of electricity — enough to power roughly 330,500 homes — every day.
The company insisted that the plant would bring thousands of jobs to the area, and members of some local unions voiced support for the anticipated economic benefits the plant would provide. NWIW also pointed to methanol created from natural gas as more environmentally friendly than the coal-based methanol produced in China.
The goal of the plant was to create methanol from natural gas pumped in via a pipeline. The clear, flammable substance would then be shipped to China, where it would be used to make plastic.
— Anneli Fogt
