CLATSKANIE, Oregon (STPNS) --     A report on progress at the Port Westward Energy Park near Clatskanie, including an update on the Cascade Grain ethanol plant, and news of a possible biodiesel plant, highlighted a meeting of the Port of St. Helens (POSH) board of commissioners held at the Community Education Center in Clatskanie last Wednesday, Feb. 27.

    Ken McFarland, Cascade Grain Products operation manager, reported to the port commission and the approximately 20 members of the public in attendance that construction on the ethanol plant is now at the peak of manpower with over 400 workers at the site. ?We?re going through commissioning and check-out of equipment, breaking-in equipment, testing motors, tanks and lines. All the main structures are built, and the final details are the focus at this point.?



    The rail facilities being rebuilt at Port Westward to accommodate the trains that will bring corn to be made into alcohol - which is then ?denatured? by the addition of gasoline into ethanol for fuel additives or fuel - is now progressing ?phenomenally? after ?we struggled a bit? during the winter months, McFarland said.

    Two train cars are scheduled to arrive at the plant site next week, he said, as a test. Then 20 cars later in the month. In mid-April the first 110-car ?unit train? full of corn will arrive, with another one in late April.

    Cascade Grain expects ?to start grinding corn for alcohol? on May 5, he said, and will operate at a reduced rate of production while performance tests are conducted during the last week of May and the first week of June. We should be at 100 percent capacity by June 6, McFarland said.

    Thirty-eight permanent employees have been hired and were at work at the plant site as of last week. Nine were expected to start this week, with the final two starting within the next two weeks. The employees come from Clatskanie, Rainier, Svensen, Longview and Winlock, and the one from Winlock is planning to move to Clatskanie, McFarland said.

    ?The only jobs that have been imported (from outside the area) are mine and the production supervisor. All the rest are local and are very talented. I?m tickled to death with the quality of people we?ve gotten. The people here are head and shoulders above my experience in the Midwest.?

    McFarland noted that Cascade Grain has signed a contract with Praxair, which will start building a CO2 plant next to Cascade Grain next year. The plant will take a portion of the CO2 - which is a by-product of the ethanol-making process - will clean it, compress it, liquify it and sell it to the beverage and food industry, and for semi-conductors.

    Columbia County Commissioner Rita Bernhard asked if there was a possibility for emergency response agencies along the train route from Portland to Port Westward to be notified when one of the trains is going through.

    McFarland said that Cascade Grain would be receiving three-hour notification of the arrival of a train - one approximately every 3 1/2 days - and he would be happy to work with the county, communities and emergency responders to provide notifications. ?We can do that.?

    ?That would be a real advantage if communities know,? Bernhard responded.

    Port Commissioner Robert Keyser remarked that he had stood in downtown Rainier and counted 80-car trains, and had been told that 130-car trains sometimes travel on the Portland and Western railroad between Rainier and Portland. With, Cascade Grain?s two trains a week (each way), ?I don?t think you?re hardly going to notice it,? Keyser said. ?People will be delayed less by the trains than they are in traffic? during commuting times in St. Helens and Scappoose.

    POSH executive director Gerald Meyer gave some general information on Port Westward, which the Port of St. Helens has owned since the mid-1960s, after it was decommissioned as the Beaver Army ammunition depot. It is located at river mile 53 on the Columbia, north of Clatskanie, and is comprised of 904 acres. Portland General Electric assumed the lease on 853 acres of that property in the early 1970s and operates its Beaver (built in 1974) and Port Westward (started production last year) generating plants there. PGE cooperated with POSH in subleasing the property for the Cascade Grain facility, but there remain over 400 acres yet to develop, including the 51 acres that are not under lease to PGE.

    The facilities at Port Westward include a 1,250 ft. dock - ?a great facility that we?ve offered to share with PGE and Cascade Grain? - and a 1.3 million barrel tank farm, the largest in the state, Meyer said.

    In addition to the new PGE generating plant and Cascade Grain, Summit Power Group has plans for a $1.7 billion integrated gas combined cycle (IGCC) project in which coal is turned into natural gas, and the CO2 from the process is sequestered. ?We?re excited about that technology and that it may happen in the future,? Meyer said.

    Tom Fuller, a consultant on Port Westward projects for the port and county noted that $27.4 million worth of infrastructure related to Port Westward is currently under construction or being planned, including $8.3 million in road upgrades, an $8.7 million well system, and approximately $11 million in upgrades to Hermo Road to create a second entrance into the energy park. Those costs are being covered, primarily, under the Port Westward Urban Renewal District, and will be repaid with property taxes from the new industries locating there.

    The road and infrastructure improvements include over $2 million on the route through the city of Clatskanie to widen streets, put sidewalks in, improve water and sewer lines, etc. ?The urban renewal district, through the county, has invested in Clatskanie as well, because Clatskanie bears the brunt of the growth at Port Westward. We recognize the city for all it?s done - it?s a critical partner.?

    The approximately $5.9 million rail system being built on site is being financed by a ConnectOregon state grant, and a loan from the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department. Additionally, Portland and Western Railroad is planning a $25 million upgrade to the track between Portland and Astoria.

    ?Not only is the urban renewal district a benefit,? Meyer remarked, ?But Port Westward enjoys some of the lowest power rates in the country, because of the Clatskanie PUD and how it is run. This is something we show our future tenants.?

    Clatskanie PUD General Manager Greg Booth reported that the PUD had just finished investing about $10.5 million in improvements and transmission lines - including about $7.5 million at the Port Westward site - to serve the industries there.

    McFarland said that the PUD had been ?extremely cooperative in working with Cascade Grain.?

NorthernStar Reports on LNG, Considers Biodiesel

    Si Garrett, chief executive officer of NorthernStar Natural Gas, the parent company of the Bradwood Landing LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminal, gave a report on that project.

    Garrett said he expected to receive the FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) permits for the plant in eastern Clatsop County this summer, and believes the state permits will be completed in the fourth quarter of this year.

    Garrett noted that NorthernStar had worked with POSH to make sure that the proposed pipeline route would not interfere with any of the projects or infrastructure at Port Westward. The pipeline from the proposed Bradwood Landing plant is planned to roughly parallel the Columbia River to Port Westward, where it will cross under  the river and travel across Cowlitz County to connect with the Williams pipeline near I-5.

    In his presentation Garrett stressed that safety is the company?s highest priority, and ?it?s our job to cause no damage to the environment. I?m not going to say we?re not going to cause any, but we spend a great deal of time and money minimalizing all of the environmental issues we have to deal with.?

    NorthernStar plans on ?mitigating much more acreage than we are disturbing on the site,? he said. The plan to purchase Svensen Island for a salmon enhancement project is the largest fish habitat improvement project on the Columbia River, he said.

    ?We hear a lot about the gas we?re bringing in going to California,? Garret said. ?Almost none will. And, that?s backed up by three independent studies.?

    He said the LNG ships are a ?bit bigger? than the car carriers that currently transverse the river. The Coast Guard security zones will allow ?all identifiable vessels? within the 500 yard security zone. The 200 yard safety zone around the ships while they are docked at Bradwood Landing will not interfere with traffic on the river or close to Clifton channel, where fishing will still be allowed, Garrett said. The security zone doesn?t extend onto land, he stated, addressing another of the frequently asked questions.

    The ships have double hulls and the LNG tank creates a third barrier. A number of years ago, Garrett said, a fully-loaded LNG ship ran into a sheer rock wall in the Straits of Gibraltar at 19 knots and didn?t breach the LNG tanks.

    Garrett described himself as a ?logical environmentalist.?

    ?You hear a lot about alternative energy. I am an environmentalist myself...I?d like to think we?d use renewables as much as possible. But for the next 10 to 12 years, natural gas is the most benign fuel,? other than hydropower and wind, which cannot satisfy the Pacific Northwest?s energy needs without supplementation from natural gas.

    With alternative fuels in mind, Garrett said, NorthernStar is constructing a Renewable Bio-fuels plant near Beaumont, Texas, and is looking for a site in the Pacific Northwest.

    Port Westward is one of the sites it is considering for a bio-fuels plant, Garrett said. The raw material would be soy or palm oil or beef tallow to begin with, he said. But, long term, the investment group is working on a thorn bush which produces an oil, and algae is another future bio-fuel source.

    Garrett said he believes within the next three years the technology to use algae for bio-fuel will be available. Algae removes CO2 from the atmosphere, and the byproduct left-over from making bio-fuel can be used as a food supplement or livestock feed.

Lots of Interest

    After the meeting, Port Commission Chair Keyser told the Chief: ?There is a lot of interest at Port Westward and we are working with all of the prospects right now. The port and PGE are negotiating a development agreement to make it easier to work together to market these properties.?