PORT ANGELES — The fate of the North Olympic Peninsula’s two mill biomass projects are now before Thurston County Superior Court.
Seven environmental groups announced Thursday that they have appealed to the court a construction permit for Port Angeles’ Nippon Paper Industries USA’s 20 megawatt biomass project granted by the Olympic Clean Air Agency.
The groups lost an appeal of the permit to the state Pollution Control Hearings Board last month.
Port Townsend Paper Corp. has an appeal of its 25 megawatt biomass project, made by several of the same groups, pending in the same court.
The appellants of Nippon’s project — Protect the Peninsula’s Future, Olympic Environmental Council, North Olympic Group of the Sierra Club, Olympic Forest Coalition, Port Townsend AirWatchers, No Biomass Burn and World Temperate Rainforest Network — said the mill’s planned controls for nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds fall short of the best available practices required by the Clean Air Act.
‘Our only option’
“Filing suit is our only option when the public agencies charged with protecting our health don’t act in the greater public’s best interest,” Crystal Tack, a Sequim health care practitioner, said in the groups’ statement.
The Port Angeles mill, on the other hand, has maintained that its new boiler, which would replace a 1950s-era boiler used solely to produce steam, would reduce most pollutants —when carbon dioxide is not taken into account — while burning about twice as much wood waste.
The pollutants that would increase are nitrogen oxide by 6 tons a year, volatile organic compounds by 36 tons a year and carbon dioxide by 231,000 tons per year, according to ORCAA.
Emissions of particulate matter would decrease by 78 tons a year, carbon monoxide would decrease by 84 tons a year, and sulfur dioxide would decrease by 209 tons a year, the agency said.
Port Townsend AirWatchers, No Biomass Burn, the Olympic Environmental Council, the Western Temperate Rainforest Network and the Olympic Forest Coalition appealed Port Townsend Paper’s $55 million biomass project to the court last year.
A hearing is set March 23 for the Port Townsend project. The company, which does not allow interviews with the media, said on its website that the project will be finished this year.
The state Department of Ecology said pollutants at the Port Townsend mill will increase by 43 tons a year for carbon monoxide and 1.1 tons a year for volatile organic compounds. Carbon dioxide emissions were not required to be calculated.
A new group, the Clallam County Healthy Air Coalition, held a meeting Jan. 27, during which members started a petition drive calling for a moratorium on biomass projects.
Nippon’s $71 million project is expected to be completed by April 2013.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
