No Methanol Plant in Tacoma!

Methanol plant rally

by Dorothy Walker, Tatoosh Group Chair

The proposal to build the world’s largest methanol plant at the Port of Tacoma has been canceled. Activism can work! Communities can make a difference! Thanks to all of you who provided help and support.

Sierra Club members, our partner RedLine Tacoma, and other local environmental groups are cautiously celebrating Northwest Innovation Work’s (NWIW) decision announced April 19 to terminate its lease in Tacoma.

Northwest Innovation Works, the China-backed company that had proposed the $3.6 billion facility on the tide flats’ former Kaiser smelter site, announced that the project had been canceled. Murray “Vee” Godley, president of NWIW, said regulatory uncertainty was the reason for the cancellation. The company’s proposals to build smaller gas-to-methanol facilities at the Port of Kalama and near Clatskanie, Oregon, remain alive.

Public opposition has been vocal and huge. Public meetings have drawn overflow crowds. This announcement comes as the Sierra Club was beginning a phone-banking blitz to pack the upcoming Port Commission meeting where the decision on extending the feasibility period of NWIW’s lease was to be made. It is clear that the people of Tacoma do not want the world’s largest methanol plant built here. Photo: Crowd outside a public meeting opposing proposed plant. 

A spokeswoman for Gov. Jay Inslee called Tuesday’s cancellation announcement “the right decision” by the company

In February, the environmental impact statement process was paused at the request of NWIW. Since then, NWIW has ignored repeated requests for technical information on the planned facility.

However, among other things, we do know:

  • The refinery would have consumed more than 3 billion gallons of water per year, mostly from the Green River where salmon depend upon it.

  • The refinery would have consumed 83 percent of the Tacoma public utility’s demand forcing the utility to purchase outside power increasing the use of fossil fuels.

  • The refinery would have greatly increased the demand for fracked natural gas transported by pipelines prone to leak methane contributing to greenhouse gases at a rate 82 times that per ton as carbon dioxide.

  • Methanol is toxic, flammable and the tide flats are on an earthquake fault.

  • One gallon of spilled methanol would suck the oxygen out of 198,000 gallons of water.

Good riddance!

Read more here: Northwest Innovation Works terminates lease with Port of Tacoma

Learn more about activities of the Pierce County Sierra Club Group