Columbia River coal export plan draws thousands of comments

SEATTLE – Regulators have received an unprecedented number of public comments on a disputed proposal to export millions of tons of coal to Asia from a facility along the Columbia River in Washington.

The Army Corps of Engineers, Washington’s Ecology Department and Cowlitz County are preparing to sift through more than 163,000 comments to decide which environmental effects should be reviewed.

“This obviously is more comments than we’ve had for most projects we’ve been involved in,” Ecology spokeswoman Linda Kent said. “What I’m hearing is that they haven’t seen this level before.”

Millennium Bulk Terminals-Longview, owned by Ambre Energy Ltd. and Arch Coal Inc., wants to build and operate a $650 million terminal at Longview to export coal from Montana and Wyoming to Asia. The coal would be carried on trains to the dock, which would ultimately be able to handle 44 million metric tons of coal a year.

It’s one of three coal-export docks proposed in Washington and Oregon. The others are projects near Bellingham and Boardman, Ore.

Millennium officials have said the Longview facility would create jobs and generate millions during construction and through yearly state and local tax revenues. The terminal, once fully operational, would produce 300 direct and indirect permanent jobs.

The scoping comment period ends Nov. 18 and is only the first step in a lengthy, yearslong process to determine the project’s environmental effects. Such a review is required before many local, state and federal permits can be approved. The county and state is conducting one review, while the army corps is doing a separate one.

Five public meetings held throughout the state drew thousands of people.

Environmental groups and others say they want to make sure that a full range of impacts are studied, from the time the coal is mined in the Rockies to its travels on trains to Washington to its ultimate burning for electricity in Asia.