Where the port is headed from here
As of now, there are 29 industries at the Port of Kalama that produce about 1,000 jobs, and there are two large-scale projects in the works.
Richland-based Energy Northwest, a joint operating agency of 20 public power organizations in Washington, picked the port for a $1 billion, 600-megawatt electric power complex that, if all goes as planned, should be up and running in 2012. In 2005, Energy Northwest signed a 50-year lease for an 80-acre industrial site at the port for the coal gasification plant.
The integrated gasification combined cycle complex will produce its own synthesis gas to fuel two 300-megawatt power plants – one owned by public power interests, the other under private financing and ownership. The build out is expected to draw nearly 1,000 workers and create about 100 permanent, family-wage jobs.
According to Energy Northwest, regulated emissions from the complex are expected to rival, and potentially outperform, those of a natural gas plant. The clean-burning synthesis gas will be produced by gasifying, rather than burning, coal, pet coke (a byproduct of crude oil refining) and potentially other carbon-
based feed stocks in a fully enclosed process.
The site will occupy the port’s last open marine terminal.
But not everyone is in support of the Pacific Mountain Energy Center.
A bill (HB 1209) was introduced to the state legislature Jan. 15 that, if adopted, provides that by Jan. 1, 2008, every electricity-generating plant in the state using coal must permanently offset its greenhouse gas emissions by 100 percent or completely phase out the use of coal for electricity, and further provides that no electric utility in the state shall enter into new long-term contracts to buy electricity using coal from within or outside the state.
The bill was sponsored by four legislators, including Rep. Jim Moeller, D-49th District. It was referred to the Committee on Technology, Energy and Communications.
The project is currently undergoing the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council permitting process and once that is completed – expected this fall – Gov. Chris Gregoire must give her OK. Assuming she does, Energy Northwest will then mitigate some small wetlands on the site and acquire emissions permitting before building can occur.
In a less contentious deal, Pennsylvania-based Cameron Family Glass Packaging has secured permits to build an $80 million, 220,000-square-foot wine bottling plant on 15 acres in the industrial park. The former Coca-Cola bottler plans to have the facility – expected to produce 120 million bottles a year – open in 2008. The family-owned company made bottles for The Coca-Cola Co. for about 100 years, parting ways in 1999 with hopes to get into the wine bottling business.
The new venture is set to provide about 100 jobs. The port is building a rail spur to facilitate importation of silica sand needed to make the bottles.
The port is also talking with a labeling company out of Los Angeles that may potentially lease space in an upcoming 40,000 square foot to 48,000-square-foot industrial park building – the fifth – that could work closely with the bottling company.
But the port is not open to selling its land – "The port goes on forever, a business may not," said port spokeswoman Merry Swanberg. Both Cameron Glass and Energy Northwest will build their own facilities and lease the land.
In other development news, site plans have been drawn up for a waterfront park, expected to be complete in September. The waterfront used to be home to an RV park, but port officials decided to close it because not many Kalama residents were using it.
The area is in true need of waterfront access, covered areas and sporting facilities, Swanberg said.
And port staff is buzzing about the possibility of bringing in a restaurant with a "name you would recognize." Staff members met recently with the restaurant, which expressed interest in moving forward. But, Swanberg cautioned, the port is new to tourism-based ventures and are industrialists first.
"It might not work out, and if it doesn’t, we’ll keep on being industrialists," she said.
