Coal news and updates

Has a state agency killed the proposed Millennium coal dock in Longview by denying the company a sublease needed to build two new docks on state aquatic lands in the Columbia River?

 

Incredibly, seven years after Millennium first proposed the project, its legal standing to build the docks is still under question and perhaps subject to legal interpretation. And, in an ironic twist for a project that has been so furiously debated on its environmental issues, the state is citing financial concerns for blocking the mega-terminal.

 

For their part, Millennium officials don’t think their $680 million project is dead.

 

“We do not anticipate this recent decision as causing any delays in obtaining permits. Millennium’s investors continue their strong support, exemplified by the $25 million already spent on cleanup of the site and $15 million on permitting for the coal terminal,” Bill Chapman, Millennium CEO/President, said in a prepared statement.

 

But Jan Hasselman, an attorney with the environmental group Earthjustice, says Millennium doesn’t have legal grounds to proceed.

 

“They’re flat wrong. They cannot build this project without both a sublease as well as explicit permission from DNR to build the project. They are not going to get either of those things,” Hasselman said in an interview Friday.

 

Washington Department of Natural Resource officials refused to speculate on what they might do if Millennium were to proceed without the agency’s approval, but observers suggested that the department would have to act to stop construction.

 

And it isn’t likely Public Lands Commissioner-Elect Hilary Franz, who dislikes fossil fuel projects, will reverse the decision of outgoing Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark.

 

The terminal, which Millennium projects would create more than 1,000 construction jobs, 130 permanent jobs and generate millions of dollars in taxes annually, has been hotly debated here and across the region. That debate could essentially end with the decision of one, lame-duck public official.

 

Goldmark last week announced that DNR will not allow Millennium to sublease 58 acres of aquatic lands that DNR has leased to Northwest Alloys, a subsidiary of Alcoa. Alcoa owns the former Reynolds Metals aluminum plant site where Millennium wants to build the coal terminal.

SOurce: TDN.COm