What would new fossil-fuel limits mean for Pierce County’s ‘economic engine,’ climate?
Tacoma City Council is considering a proposal that would permanently make new and expanded fossil-fuel facilities on the Tideflats a thing of the past.
The proposal, recommended by the Planning Commission earlier this month, would replace the Tideflats interim regulations originally approved by City Council in 2017 when the city, in partnership with the city of Fife, Puyallup Tribe of Indians, Pierce County and the Port of Tacoma, embarked on a larger subarea plan to determine the future of the Tideflats.
The Tideflats interim regulations put a temporary ban on all new fossil-fuel refineries and terminals for a year, after which the City Council continued to re-approve the interim regulations every six months.
In October, some City Council members asked to have more permanent regulations brought forward that would exist through the remainder of the subarea planning process, which is anticipated to take at least another three years. Getting all five governments to meet on the issue, and ensuing COVID-19 problems, have delayed the process, according to city leaders. Currently, the subarea plan is initiating a community process.
City Council members say the reason for the permanent regulations is twofold: Not only was the subarea planning process taking longer than expected, but having the regulations return to Council every six months was generating uncertainty for both the public and business community.
“I know that the community, I know that businesses, I know that this Council … has been extremely frustrated by the length of time it has taken us to get to the Subarea Plan,” Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards said in October. “The word ‘interim’ means temporary. Temporary is normally not three years … But here we are almost three years later.”
Stephen Atkinson, principal planner for the City of Tacoma, told The News Tribune in an interview on Tuesday that from a business climate standpoint, predictability and certainty with regulations is really important.
“We’re also hearing from other community members about the challenges of every six months, the interim regulations could change; they could be reconsidered … Having to go through that process every six months was creating an additional layer of uncertainty that our community and business community was having to deal with,” Atkinson said.
For years, environmental advocates, tribal members and various Tacoma residents have been calling for City Council to make the regulations permanent, and to expand them to prohibit existing fossil-fuel facilities on the port — of which there are six — to expand.
Meanwhile, others are imploring the city to slow down, claiming the new regulations will harm businesses and cost family wage jobs.
The public has the chance to comment on the regulations at a public hearing at 5:15 p.m. April 27, after which the City Council is set to vote on whether to approve the regulations in mid-May. The public hearing can be accessed via an online Zoom link or comments can be submitted in writing to City Council.
What would the new regulations do?
If approved, the proposal — called the Tideflats non-interim regulations — would prohibit a number of uses in the port, including:
- Mining and quarrying.
Smelting.
Coal storage and export.
Chemical manufacturing such as petrochemical, explosives, and fertilizer manufacturing. (Chemical manufacturing of hazardous materials would require a conditional-use permit in certain zoning districts.)
New fossil-fuel facilities.
Existing fossil-fuel facilities from improvements that would expand existing facility refining or storage.
The regulations also prohibit mining and quarrying, smelting, coal storage and export and certain chemical manufacturing not just in the port, but city-wide.
The proposed regulations create a separate use for renewable fossil-fuel facilities that the Planning Commission’s report says would allow them to open through conditional use permits, depending on their risks and impacts, with the intent that the port transition to clean, renewable fuels, such as wind and solar power.
There are six major fossil-fuel facilities located within the Tideflats consisting of 5,185,000 barrels of storage capacity and 46,700 barrels per day refining and production capacity, according to city documents. Those facilities would not be allowed to build new infrastructure that increases existing storage or refining ability.
The non-interim regulations also expand the rules for notifying the public of new heavy industrial uses in the manufacturing and industrial zones in the Tideflats and in South Tacoma. Notification distances would be expanded from 400 to 1,000 feet in some places to 2,500 feet from the project, and would include renters as well as property owners.
The new regulations would prohibit non-industrial uses from popping up on the Tideflats in order to protect the amount of industrial land supply.
“A small subset of things like airports, agriculture, hospitals, schools — uses that maybe either really incompatible being cited within a heavy industrial area, or would essentially take so much land if one were to locate that it would impact our industrial land supply,” Atkinson said.
The regulations also put some standards in place to focus housing away from the port and create buffer areas between residential and high industrial areas.
“The hope is to minimize how many nuisance complaints or concerns you have from folks living near the port industrial area,” Atkinson said.
A ‘rushed process,’ opponents say
A public outreach process that began in December spanned two public hearings, 80,000 public notices, email notifications to 700 individuals and organizations, a listening session and informational meeting with interest groups.
In a two-hour public hearing by the Planning Commission on March 3, more than 30 verbal and 70 written comments were provided, both in support and opposition.
Opponents of the non-interim regulations say the new proposal is “rushed” and will be damaging to businesses if enacted.
Frank Boykin Jr. is the director of the Manufacturing Industrial Council (MIC) for the South Sound Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce, which represents 1,500 manufacturing, industrial and maritime businesses.
Boykin said the MIC is opposed to the non-interim regulations, worrying approving them could cost the region jobs and revenue in a time where the economy already is disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“These non-interim Regulations are complex and deserve a thorough discussion with all stakeholders involved, especially the public largely left out of the discussion due to the brevity of the process now underway by the Council,” Boykin said in a statement to The News Tribune. “There is no advantage in rushing a process that could have a lasting impact on businesses and the workers they employ in the Tideflats. We’re hopeful the Council will slow down this process; the stakes are too high to do otherwise.”
Many opponents spoke to the increased use of conditional-use permits for businesses, which could cause additional permit review time and result in businesses choosing to look to build in places other than the Port of Tacoma.
“Imposing use limitations and complicated permitting requirements on manufacturing jobs will result in fewer jobs in Tacoma,” Eric Johnson, executive director of the Port of Tacoma, said in a March 3 letter to the Planning Commission and City Council members.
In an 8-page letter sent March 8, Puget Sound Energy told the Planning Commission it had “significant concerns” that the regulations would hamper its ability to reduce regional greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution through operation of its Tacoma liquified natural gas facility.
Puget Sound Energy argued in its letter that it could reduce its greenhouse gases by using LNG as a transportation fuel in ships, but under the non-interim regulations, the agency would be denied the ability to increase throughput to serve more maritime customers.
Others have argued the LNG plant would bring a net increase in greenhouse gases because of so-called “upstream” impacts of drilling for and transporting the gas to Tacoma.
Andrew Troske, a facility manager for U.S. Oil and Refining, said the non-interim regulations, as written, would discourage transitions to cleaner fuels.
“(Conditional Use Permits) for maintenance, safety, environmental and renewable fuels development do not give the regulatory clarity and certainty needed to garner investment and transform our shared vision into a resource that benefits this community,” Troske said during public comment on March 3.
A spokesperson for WestRock, a pulp and paper mill located on the Tideflats, encouraged the city to pause the non-interim regulations, for various reasons, from confusion surrounding the changes to public notification requirements and burden on businesses for increased permit review time.
“These are but a few of the reasons why WestRock believes a pause on the rush to amend Tideflats land use regulation is warranted in order to develop a more complete and better, balanced set of rules to guide Tacoma’s industrial manufacturers,” WestRock energy resource manager Bruce Martin stated in a March 8 letter to the Planning Commission.
Step toward a ‘clean and thriving’ port, say supporters
Supporters have made their voices heard to champion the non-interim regulations, saying it’s a good first step toward creating a cleaner Tideflats.
“The Tacoma Tideflats and surrounding neighborhoods are exposed to environmental health disparities,” Puyallup Tribal Council said in a statement to The News Tribune on Thursday. “We believe the draft regulations would curtail further harm to these communities from high-risk and high-impact industrial facilities. More can be done to promote health equity and protect the environment, but the draft regulations are a step in the right direction.”
Melissa Malott, executive director of Citizens for a Healthy Bay, told The News Tribune the port is an economic engine for the region that can thrive by being clean and healthy.
The non-interim regulations help to do that, she said, by paving the way for clean industrial manufacturing jobs while lending more oversight to fossil-fuel facilities and chemical manufacturers that want to expand.
Citizens for a Healthy Bay also supports expanded notification for people who could be potentially impacted by Tideflats projects.
The non-interim regulations aren’t perfect, though, said Malott and Erin Dilworth, a policy manager with Citizens for a Healthy Bay. The non-interim regulations would still permit new fossil-fuel facilities that have a storage capacity of under 1 million gallons, and Citizens for a Healthy Bay wants to see the definition of the volumetric threshold for a major fossil-fuel facility lowered.
Still, Malott and Dilworth say making the regulations permanent is a good first step.
“This regulation is about growing Tacoma into the clean and thriving port city that we know we can be,” Malott said. “Having a clean, thriving port city won’t happen overnight with the wave of a wand. So we have to start the process by this type of policy change: this is the first step — it’s saying no new oil companies and that we want more scrutiny of certain types of industrial development so that we make sure clean, sustainable industry comes here.”
350 Tacoma, a grassroots climate justice organization run by volunteers, picked up street theater to protest the use of fossil-fuels in the port and supporting the non-interim regulations. The group created a fictitious oil company called Petro Eternum Washington, or PEW, and created fake 24-foot by 15-foot micro fossil-fuel storage tanks in various locations around Tacoma, including Wright Park, Cummings Park and Tollefson Plaza downtown.
The actions are an effort to draw more attention to the issue and what it would be like to have a storage tank right in your backyard, said 350 Tacoma volunteer Daniel Villa.
“Even the name ‘interim regulations,’ ‘non-interim regulations,’ ‘subarea planning process’ — none of these things lend themselves to easily communicating the issue with people,” Villa said. “...It’s deciding the future of Tacoma — are we going to continue to be a hub for fossil fuels, or are we going to move into new industry?”
When asked what other changes he thinks should happen to make a cleaner Tideflats, Villa said there’s a whole list of things, from converting parts of the port back to estuary to help salmon populations to building electrification, an action the City Council took a step toward earlier this week.
“We’ll do whatever we can to help get the City of Tacoma moving away from fossil fuels because it’s only gonna hurt Tacoma,” Villa said. “The longer we stick with fossil fuels, we’re just going to be left behind with this archaic technology that the rest of the world is swiftly abandoning.”
This story was originally published April 24, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
