By Sept Gernez, Conservation Organizer
On November 22nd, 2019 the Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) ruled that the environmental review for the Kalama Methanol Refinery used outdated information and baseless assumptions. It’s obvious to us that the company behind the project relied on false science to try to hide the devastating climate impacts of the refinery. Ecology determined that the backers of the project failed to provide complete, adequate information to state regulators, and decided to conduct a new Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Now that the project is in Ecology’s hands, this is a major setback for the project’s proponents and gives us a golden opportunity to shut this plant down once and for all.
Sierra Club and our partners in the Power Past Fracked Gas Coalition have been working to keep the World’s Largest Fracked Gas to Methanol Refinery from being built in Kalama, Southwest Washington since 2015, joining community members who have been resisting this refinery since it was proposed. If built, the refinery would quickly become Washington’s largest greenhouse gas polluter. Much of the pollution will come in the form of methane, a greenhouse gas pollutant 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over the next 20 years. Since it sits on the bank of the Columbia river, any potential spills would endanger chinook salmon, which our critically endangered orca rely on for food. In addition, the Kalama methanol refinery would also require huge fracked gas pipeline expansions across the state of Washington, opening the floodgates for more fossil fuel use.
The new environmental review will address major gaps in Northwest Innovation Works’ previous review. We expect comment periods and hearings in 2020 in which you, the public, can help the Department of Ecology employ the latest science, and ultimately deny the project!