Port of Morrow

The Port of Morrow is the largest industrial port in Oregon east of Portland, and the town is home to Portland General Electric (PGE)'s Boardman Plant.

Background
On May 11, 2011, the Port of Morrow Commission approved a one-year lease option with Coyote Island Terminal of Utah to build a rail off-loading coal terminal for coal exports to Asia.

Off-loading coal terminal
On May 11, 2011, the Port of Morrow Commission approved a one-year lease option with Coyote Island Terminal LLC of Salt Lake City, Utah, to build a rail off-loading coal terminal on up to 24.26 acres to transfer the coal onto barges for shipment to the Millennium Bulk Logistics Longview Terminal in Washington, and on to customers in Asia.

Millennium is a unit of Ambre Energy, a closely held mining company based in Brisbane, Australia. The properties are adjacent to the land occupied by Pacific Ethanol and ZeaChem, which is building a cellulosic ethanol test plant.

Michael Klein and Everett King of Ambre Energy North America Inc. met with commissioners in a closed session right before the board unanimously approved the lease option. It calls for Coyote Island Terminal, a subsidiary of Ambre Energy, to pay the port $60,745 during the next year to secure the option. Klein said his company will use the next year to investigate what it can do with the site, saying the project is in a very early stage, so how much coal the company might ship and to what destinations are still to be determined. Ambre Energy’s website states: “It is Ambre Energy’s intention to establish one of the few coal export facilities on the west coast of North America to provide access to growing Asia-Pacific markets for U.S. thermal coal.”

Klein said his company hopes to ship unit trains of coal to the port from the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming. The typical coal train is 100 to 120 cars long — a mile of coal. Each hopper car holds 100 to 115 tons of coal, which lasts just 20 minutes fueling a power plant.

Critics of the proposed coal shipping barge state that they are concerned about coal dust spillage from the railways as the coal is transported from the mine to the port.

It was announced in July 2012 that Ambre Energy was required to obtain an Oregon DEQ air permit for its proposed coal storage facility at the Port of Morrow.

In May 2013, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued draft permits regulating coal dust at the Coyote Island Terminal at the Port of Morrow. The department will hold public hearings on the air and water pollution permits July 2013, and there is no specific date for final permits. Two of the permits are designed to control the release of coal dust into the air and water while it is being handled. A third permit covers potential erosion during construction. The project is still awaiting a permit for dock construction from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

EPA: coal export projects could have 'significant' public health impacts
In April 2012 the EPA stated that they desired a thorough review of the consequences of coal export through Northwest ports, staying the first project in the pipeline -- at the Port of Morrow -- "has the potential to significantly impact human health and the environment." The EPA's letter to the Army Corps of Engineers stated they wanted a "thorough and broadly scoped" environmental review. Potential problems include health impacts from coal dust and diesel emissions on train and barge trips through the Columbia River Gorge and the effects of ozone, particulates and mercury returning on trade winds after coal is burned in Asia.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Coal exports from northwest United States ports
 * Oregon and coal
 * Powder River Basin
 * Utah and coal