PORT ANGELES — In a letter to the president of Nippon Paper Industries USA, Port Angeles Mayor Cherie Kidd thanks the company for its
$71 million biomass project and for its “many contributions to our community.”
The one-page letter was sent to Hiro Sagawa last week.
Kidd describes Nippon and its biomass-fed cogeneration plant under construction on Marine Drive as “an important part of our expanded economic development efforts and the jobs you provide are a critical part of our local economy.”
The mayor also asked for a City Council and key city staff tour of the paper mill and recycling plant in the next month.
“We look forward to this opportunity to see first-hand your investment in plant upgrades that will help you compete in the pulp and paper business,” Kidd wrote.
“I hope you can arrange to be part of this tour so we can get to know each other better. Our friendship and partnership is very valuable to us and we look forward to a positive future and close working relationship.”
In a Monday telephone interview, Kidd said the letter was “just a courtesy” and written in a “spirit of economic development.”
“Last year alone, they invested $65 million in this community, and they’re hiring 22 new people,” she said.
“This is important to our town.”
Kidd said the mill that Nippon now owns “has provided family wage jobs and benefits for 92 years, or basically four generations, to families that are at the very heart and soul of the community.”
But the biomass project has drawn its share of controversy.
Both the Nippon project and Port Townsend Paper Corp.’s proposed $55 million biomass project at its paper mill have withstood legal challenges from several environmental groups.
Biomass facilities, which turn wood waste into heat and electricity, have raised concerns over particulate pollution, especially tiny “nanoparticulates” that biomass opponents say can lodge in people’s lungs.
Opponents says nanoparticulates can kill, but they are not separately regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Proponents say biomass facilities like the one under construction at the Nippon mill generate less pollution than conventional plants and that nanoparticulates come from a variety of sources, including wood stoves.
Environmental groups No Biomass Burn, Olympic Environmental Council, Western Temperate Rainforest Network, Port Townsend AirWatchers, Olympic Forest Coalition and the Cascade Chapter of the Sierra Club lost an appeal of the permit issued to Nippon by the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency at the state Pollution Control Hearings Board in January.
A hearing on the appeal is set for May 4 in Thurston County Superior Court.
Last week, the Port Angeles City Council heard an hour of public testimony from a standing-room-only audience on the pollution-related pros and cons of biomass cogeneration, but decided against taking action to discuss it further.
In a 5-2 vote, the council on April 3 decided against a proposed joint meeting with the Sequim City Council on the biomass issue.
Council members Max Mania and Sissi Bruch voted in favor of the meeting.
Mania said in a March 20 council meeting that he would like the council to discuss a moratorium on the project, which he has consistently opposed, to better understand the potential health effects.
Mania did not call for a moratorium last week.
City Attorney Bill Bloor warned that the council could not establish a moratorium if it wanted to.
Opponents of the biomass project say 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.
Nippon officials maintain that the new boiler, which will replace a 1950s-era boiler used solely to produce steam, will reduce most pollutants — when carbon dioxide is not taken into account — while burning about twice as much wood waste.
Kidd, who said she has been reading up on biomass, said she welcomes input from all sides of the issue.
“We have differences of opinion, and that’s what we do — we discuss the issues and then we learn more,” she said.
Nippon mill manager Harold Norlund has said that all of the permits are in place for the project, which will create 20 megawatts of electricity when it is completed in April 2013.
Norlund was not immediately available to comment Monday on Kidd’s letter.
Diana Somerville, Port Angeles freelance writer who opposes the biomass project, said she voiced her concerns about the letter directly to Kidd at the Port Angeles Farmers Market on Saturday.
“I think that what the City Council has done was to focus so narrowly on the 200 or so people that work at Nippon . . . and ignored or slapped in the face the other 19,000 residents of this community,” Somerville said.
Gretchen Brewer of Port Townsend AirWatchers had not seen the letter as of Monday afternoon.
“Given the rising opposition among the citizens, I’m thinking that this letter is a sign that the City Council is getting nervous about having approved the project,” Brewer said.
Kidd told Sagawa that the biomass upgrade and expansion is “very much appreciated and shows your support to our city.”
“There nothing better than a hometown business making a long-term commitment,” Kidd said Monday.
“As the mayor, I appreciate the people who invest in the people and the future of this community.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com
