Company to resubmit permit for coal-shipping port

A company that wants to build a coal-shipping port on the Columbia River plans to withdraw a controversial permit currently under appeal, three weeks before the case was set to go to trial.

Millennium Bulk Terminals said Tuesday that reapplying for a permit would allow it to conduct a more detailed review of the project's potential environmental impacts - which environmentalists had pushed.

"We believe this is the best way forward for both the community and the project," said Joe Cannon, chief executive officer of Millennium, a subsidiary of Australia-based Ambre Energy.

Environmental groups that appealed the permit said Tuesday the company had no choice but to withdraw the permit and start over, after revelations that the company discussed plans for a facility that could handle far more coal than it had stated in its permit application.

Millennium had applied for a permit from Cowlitz County to ship about 5 million tons of coal from Wyoming and Montana to Asia through the Longview port. Company executives had internal discussions as recently as December on a project that could handle 80 million tons of the coal annually, documents show.

"Millennium withdrawing their permit application after the true size of their proposal was revealed just goes to show how much they'd misrepresented their intentions," said Becky Kelley with the Washington Environmental Council.

The council, the Sierra Club, Columbia Riverkeeper and Climate Solutions, represented by the public interest law firm Earthjustice, had appealed the permit to a state hearings board. The groups raised concerns about potential health problems from coal dust, traffic congestion from coal trains and greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal.

Cannon said the company will do a full environmental review to address concerns raised about the project. The company remained focused on creating jobs in the state, he added.