PORT ANGELES — The state Pollution Control Hearings Board has sided with Nippon Paper Industries USA in a challenge to its $71 million biomass energy project.
Seven environmental groups had appealed a construction permit granted by the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency last June, alleging it was based on faulty data.
In a summary judgement, the board ruled Jan. 4 that the groups failed to prove that the emissions calculations used by the agency were incorrect.
“This ruling substantiates the excellent work that Nippon did to make sure that the biomass boiler project had the best environmental controls available,” mill Manager Harold Norlund said in a written statement.
A spokesperson for the groups — Protect the Peninsula’s Future, No Biomass Burn, Port Townsend AirWatchers and the North Olympic Group of the Sierra Club, World Temperate Rainforest Network, Olympic Forest Coalition and Olympic Environmental Council — could not be immediately reached for comment.
The project, which will produce up to 20 megawatts of electricity by burning wood waste from logging sites and saw mills, is under construction and expected to be finished by early 2013.
It also had survived previous challenges to its shoreline development permit, which were appealed to the Port Angeles City Council and state Shoreline Hearings Board.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
