It is hard to resist the promise of new jobs to reduce chronically high unemployment.

But scraping up the last twigs off our forests to feed an industrial wood pellet plant for export to Asia, at the cost of our children’s health from air pollution, is another scheme by outsiders to deplete our forests and exploit our communities for their gain, not ours.

Pacific Northwest Renewable Energy (PNWRE) is not from the Pacific Northwest. It hopes to build a huge wood pellet plant to export pellets to Asia. At a Hoquiam City Council meeting in late 2024, a PNWRE representative claimed that the company would utilize logging slash from our forests as the raw material for the plants. But forest slash is not a renewable energy source.

The proposed plant is very close to Hoquiam High School, Middle School and Emerson Elementary School, which are attended by 1,551 students. PNWRE claims the pellet plant would improve air quality by reducing the burning of slash, but a Mississippi study showed emissions from pellet plants, such as particulate matter, black carbon, nitrogen dioxide and volatile organic compounds, exceeded Clean Air Act thresholds by up to five times. It could dump 40 tons of hazardous air pollutants including 20 tons of methanol onto our children every year.

The proposed plant will have two wet and four dry hammer mills, which are incredibly loud. Truck traffic through town and school zones will intensify noise and traffic. Do we want this for our children and community, every single day? Why are we forced to choose between jobs and harmful air pollution?

Countries in Europe and Japan have subsidized the burning of pellets to generate electricity, creating this demand for our wood. Dozens of pellet plants in the Southeastern United States currently export pellets to Europe. More are proposed for Longview and Northern California.

PNWRE’s proposed Hoquiam plant would export 425 metric tons of pellets to Asia every year, where bioenergy has been deemed a “renewable.” Why? Profit for outsiders.

PNWRE has vowed to use waste wood, not whole trees. They won’t need whole trees because right next door is Willis Enterprises. The PNWRE spokesperson stated that Willis “offers feedstock top up if necessary.” Wood pellet producers in the Southeastern U.S. also vowed to use waste wood — but the Southern Environmental Law Center estimates at least 100,000 acres of forests in the Southeast have been clear cut for pellet exports. Similar promises were made in British Columbia, but an investigation by Canadian Broadcast Services The Fifth Estate found whole trees, even old growth trees, were ground up into pellets.

The speaker stated that using slash would help us solve our “forest waste problem.” Many believe there is not enough biomass to feed the pellet plant and if true, this could accelerate harvest on private lands owned by Weyerhaeuser, Rayonier, Green Diamond and Sierra Pacific.

This may help the forest products industry, but it is only going to accelerate the rush to extinction of local salmon species due to increased water temperatures. Increased clear cutting of forests increases the risk of flooding, raising costs for all of us. How will this affect other jobs in shellfish aquaculture, crabbing and fishing industries?

Local groups filed an appeal of the project’s Air Operating Permit because PNWRE’s application vastly underestimated harmful air pollution that would be emitted from the facility. The Washington Pollution Control Hearings Board will review the validity of the permit in the coming months.

Finally, the proposed site is a contaminated cleanup site called the Grays Harbor Port Export Facility Development Site. It has soil and sediments contaminated with metals, dioxins/furans and other contaminants that exceed Washington state cleanup levels. This industrial legacy must be investigated and cleaned up prior to construction. These cleanups take time, must meet cleanup standards, and be transparent to the public.

We are fortunate to be surrounded by a forest landscape home to salmon, deer and elk that we all enjoy. We are not a fiber basket for PNWRE to exploit.

I am all for creating new jobs, but not at the expense of our children. PNWRE is trying to greenwash us with their hunger for money.

The mission of Twin Harbors Waterkeeper is to protect and improve water quality and marine and freshwater habitats on the Washington coast including the watersheds of the Hoh, Quillayute, Queets and Quinault and Chehalis Rivers and the Chehalis River Estuary and Willapa Bay Watershed.