Opponents of a proposed Longview coal terminal demanded Tuesday that Cowlitz County commissioners rescind a permit for its construction following allegations that Millennium Bulk Logistics may have misled officials about its plans for the facility.
A company official, however, said, "I don't think we've been disingenuous."
Publicly, Australia-based Millennium has said it plans to export 5.7 million tons of coal a year from the site of the former Reynolds aluminum smelter. However, internal company documents uncovered during an appeal of the county shoreline permit indicate Millennium failed to disclose plans to expand the facility to handle 20 million tons a year and possibly as many as 60 million tons. If executed, those plans would make the Longview facility the biggest coal export terminal on the North American West Coast.
The documents include discussions among coal company executives about not revealing the expansion plans too quickly, so as not to be perceived as misleading officials.
Mike Wojtowicz, Cowlitz County's director of building and planning, called the revelations "surprising" and added the county is "exploring all of our options at this moment." County officials first saw the documents Friday and spent the past two days setting up meetings with interested parties, including the state Department of Ecology, he said.
The state Shorelines Hearing Board is already considering an appeal of the county's Nov. 18 decision to grant the project a shorelines permit. Tuesday, the state board agreed to include the issue of whether the company hid its expansion plans in that review, Wojtowicz said.
Millennium CEO Joe Cannon acknowledged Tuesday that company executives want to expand the terminal, but said there are no immediate plans to do so. Exporting more than 5 million tons from the site annually would present huge financial, environmental, marketing and transportation challenges, Cannon said, adding that expansion discussions were halted last year to focus on the proposal that was presented to the public.
However, Dan Serres, an activist with Columbia Riverkeeper, an environmental group that posted the Millenium documents on its website, disputed Millenium's claim that the expansion was just theoretical.
"These plans for expansion are real, engineered plans ... not just vague, future plans," Serres said. "This is a megaport."
Among the documents is a memo from Jeff Torkington, the CEO of Ambre Energy, Millennium's parent company, noting that "significant time and effort has been invested" in developing good political relationships with local regulators, and those efforts "would be lost overnight" if plans to expand the coal terminal were revealed too quickly.
Should expansion plans be publicly disclosed "without the appropriate consultation period, then Millennium will be perceived as having deceived the agencies," said the memo, which is dated Oct. 28 - less than a month before Cowlitz County commissioners approved the terminal's shoreline permit.
Another Ambre document provided by Riverkeeper says that in the "short to medium term" Ambre will develop a coal terminal to handle 20 million tons per year. "This will be the largest coal terminal on the U.S. West Coast and second only to the 21 million ton capacity at Westshore in Vancouver, Canada."
That document also said: "In the longer term, Ambre plans to develop a 60 million tons per year coal terminal, which will be the largest coal terminal on the North American West Coast."
Cannon said in a phone interview that he would meet with county officials Tuesday afternoon to discuss the documents.
Asked if the company plans to expand the facility, Cannon said, "I don't want to sound like Bill Clinton here, but it depends on what you mean by ‘plans.' .... There are people at the company in Australia and potential investors who would love to put more coal through this site. ... There is a big interest in expanding this facility. ... There are no current plans to do so."
Of the documents' release to the public, Cannon said, "I would really like to un-ring this bell. I would. ... (But) I don't think we've been disingenuous. I think we've been as open as we can be."
But Riverkeeper said in a prepared statement that the "The documents clearly show that the companies hid the full scope of the project in hopes that county and state officials would quickly approve the smaller piece of the project."
A Nov. 5 e-mail between Ambre executives said: "We are at too sensitive a juncture to raise the plans to build a second berth. The community is small and the risk to the current permit path is too large."
Another e-mail from Torkington, dated July 19, said, "Any expansion plans ... should not be made available to any outside party."
County officials said they're reviewing their options in light of the new allegations.
"This is information that no one at the county had seen before Friday ... and we're going to look at this seriously," said Ron Marshall, the county's chief civil deputy prosecutor. "And we're going to look at whether there are both options available and whether action is appropriate."
Marshall added he'd never seen a situation like this and that the revelation of the documents certainly "raises questions."
Several citizens told commissioners Tuesday the new revelations increased their opposition to the terminal and called on commissioners to revoke the shoreline permit and start the review process from scratch.
"They say in the memo that they don't want to be perceived as deceiving (officials), said Les Anderson of Willow Grove. "I don't think there's any ‘perception' anymore. It's pretty black and white. ... I think they lied to us. I think they voided their permits and I think (commissioners) need to respond to the real concerns of the citizens instead of a big old rubber stamp that lets them come in with a small footprint and then expand.
"If I built a house and lied on the permit form I'd be shut down."
"I'm frustrated and angry," Longview's Margaret Green told commissioners. She added the company used "deception" to hid the full scope of the process. "This makes a mockery out of our system."
Serres, the Columbia Riverkeeper activist, noted the company said it had no expansion plans when it filed county permit forms.
"This commission was mislead. The public was mislead," Serres said. "I think you (county commissioners) have the right to revoke the permit."
Commission Chairman George Raiter said county officials are reviewing the matter but are not yet sure what their options are, especially since the county shorelines permit already has been appealed to the state. A decision is due in June.
Wojtowicz said in its application the company listed dock repair, maintenance and infrastructure improvements to the Reynolds site. No where is there any mention of expanding beyond 5.7 million tons. The company also wrote that beyond the repairs and maintenance there are "no other current plans by Millennium."
If the company wanted to expand at any point, it would require a new permit and environmental review, he said.
"The permits they were issued limit them to export of 5 million tons of coal a year," he said.
Cannon is quoted in a Tuesday Daily News article saying the Longview terminal would generate one or two train trips daily, bringing as many as 250 rail cars through Longview. Expanding the terminal's capacity, he said in Tuesday's article, would "take a really major look at upgrades to the whole rail system around here."
Cannon stood by those statements Tuesday, saying, "To increase the tonnage out of this facility is a massive proposition, if it could ever happen."
