Called-off biomass forum prompts Monday protest in Sequim
Published 12:01 am Sunday, May 13, 2012
SEQUIM — Clallam County Healthy Air Coalition plans to conduct a protest Monday.
The gathering will be at 5 p.m. at the corner of Sequim Avenue and Washington Street in response to the Sequim City Council’s cancellation of a planned public forum on biomass burning, said Diana Somerville, spokeswoman for the coalition.
Leaflets will be passed out while people hold signs, said Rose Marschall, an organizer of the protest.
At about 5:30 p.m., the group will walk to the Sequim City Council meeting at the Sequim Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St., where a public study session is planned at 5 p.m. and a regular session at 6 p.m.
Monday’s protest is on the same day that the planned biomass forum would have been held.
It was to focus on the $71 million expansion of biomass facilities at Nippon Paper Industries USA Inc. in Port Angeles that is expected to be completed in 2013.
The City Council canceled the forum in April after a public study session with Harold Norlund, manager of the Nippon mill.
The action was by consensus.
No vote was taken.
The reason was that the city has no authority in such matters, said Mayor Ken Hays and Councilwoman Candace Pratt.
“As a governing agency, I don’t see how we can take a stand on a project that’s already been approved by agencies and authorities that are many levels above our level of government,” Hays said.
Pratt — who served with council members Laura Dubois and Erik Erichsen on a subcommittee organizing the forum — described the cancellation as “a collective change of mind.”
She said she regretted that the forum had been canceled.
“I wanted it to happen, but when it became clear that it wasn’t a city function, that we don’t have any authority over it, then I agreed that we’d have to give it up,” Pratt said.
The Port Angeles project, as well as a biomass expansion under way at the Port Townsend Paper mill, has been fought by a coalition of environmental groups with health concerns about the facilities.
