Open Letter to Director Watson and Washington Dept. of Ecology to Please Do a Climate Analysis of Northwest Innovation Works’ (NWIW) Proposed Fracked Gas-to-methanol Refinery in Kalama

UPDATE: Columbia Riverkeeper reported "a broad coalition of over 30 community organizations representing tens of thousands of people from across the Northwest urged the Washington Department of Ecology and Governor Jay Inslee to deny the world’s largest fracked gas-to-methanol refinery, proposed in Kalama, Washington. Over the past 40 days, thousands of commenters urged denial of the massive refinery, which would use up to 320 million cubic feet of fracked gas per day, more than all of Washington’s gas-fired power plants combined. At least 6,000 comments were submitted in opposition to the project. [par break] Altogether, Ecology concluded the methanol refinery would cause 4.6 million tons of climate pollution every year for 40 years—making it one of Washington’s largest sources of climate pollution."  In addition to Columbia Riverkeeper, organizations working "to deny the . . . refinery" included Washington Environmental Council, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, Natural Resources Defense Council, Food & Water Watch, 350 Seattle, 350 Tacoma, NoMethanol360.org (Kalama), Lower Columbia Stewardship Community, Green Energy Institute, Don & Along Steinke, Earth Ministry/Washington Interfaith Power & Light, Friends of the San Juans, STAND.earth, 350 PDX, Breach Collective, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Save our Wild Salmon, Neighbors for Clean Air, Rogue Climate, Portland Audubon Society, Northwest Environmental Defense Center, Oregon Conservancy Foundation, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Power Past Fracked Gas Coalition, Stop Fracked Gas PDX, Stop Zenith Collaborative, Climate Action Coalition, Sunrise PDX, and First Unitarian Church of Portland.

UPDATE: Columbia Riverkeeper reported "The Washington Department of Ecology just extended the Kalama methanol comment period deadline to October 9, 2020."

Last night I, and 88 others, attended the Kalama Methanol Pre-hearing Rally and Comment Workshop organized by Sierra Club, and this morning I sent the email below to support "a Climate Analysis" and consider earthquake risk to what could become "the world’s largest fracked gas-to-methanol refinery in Kalama, Washington" if money and politics win instead of conscience and common sense.  Please consider opposing this project by using the Washington's Department of Ecology Website, mailing comments to Rich Doenges, Department of Ecology, PO Box 47775, Olympia, WA 98504-7775, or giving oral comments during one of three online public hearings. Register for online hearings here.

Director Watson and Dept. of Ecology:

I have fished the Columbia River and her tributaries for 50 years, and I'm concerned about impacts on salmon.  I worked the Pacific Ocean as a commercial salmon troller and charter captain, and now I mainly fish the rivers.

In addition to climate impacts, I understand the proposed gas-to-methanol site is unstable as noted in the draft EIS explaining soil at the plant site has a “moderate to high liquefaction susceptibility”  in the event of an earthquake.

I saw a July 13, 2015, New Yorker article by Kathryn Schulz noting "In fact, the science is robust, and one of the chief scientists behind it is Chris Goldfinger. Thanks to work done by him and his colleagues, we now know that the odds of the big Cascadia earthquake happening in the next fifty years are roughly one in three." The article continues "In the Pacific Northwest, the area of impact will cover some hundred and forty thousand square miles, including Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, Salem (the capital city of Oregon), Olympia (the capital of Washington), and some seven million people. When the next full-margin rupture happens [odds are 'are roughly one in ten'], that region will suffer the worst natural disaster in the history of North America, outside of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, which killed upward of a hundred thousand people."  

Therefore, I imagine building the world’s largest fracked gas-to-methanol refinery in Kalama is about as smart as building the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima Prefecture, near the Pacific Ocean about 33 feet above sea level partly to reduce operating costs of seawater pumps.  You know the result of that. Charles Perrow wrote in the April 1, 2011 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists  "Currently our approach to risk is 'probabilistic,' and the probability of a tsunami seriously damaging the Fukushima Daiichi plant was extremely small. But we should also consider a worst-case approach to risk: the 'possibilistic' approach, as Rutgers University sociologist Lee Clarke calls it in his 2005 book Worst Cases: Terror and Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination. In this approach, things that never happened before are possible. Indeed, they happen all the time." 

In short, in addition to the obvious climate impacts, a one in three chance of a big earthquake hitting Kalama in the "next fifty years" should be enough risk to say "No."

Sincerely,

Scott T. Starbuck