The Washington Dept. of Ecology (Ecology) Asked—and You Answered!
With your support, thousands of people spoke out against the world’s largest fracked gas-to-methanol refinery. Together, we demanded a cleaner, healthier future.
Here are the top three takeaways:
- Committing to 40 years of fracked gas use would undermine Governor Inslee’s efforts to combat climate change.
- There is no guarantee that the Kalama methanol refinery would prevent China from also using dirtier forms of methanol.
- The proposed mitigation is vague and would only offset a small percentage of the climate pollution caused by the Kalama methanol refinery.
The community in Kalama stepped up in a big way, as well. Through countless hours of work and research, a team of expert activists in Kalama submitted dozens of detailed comments, highlighting flaws in Northwest Innovation Works’ highly polluting scheme for their community. With friends and allies across the region, we filled over 11 hours of online public testimony with comments mostly opposing the methanol refinery.
What comes next?
The Department of Ecology will develop a Final environmental review document based on the comments they received, and the agency will move towards making a final decision by the end of 2020. We won’t sit on our hands and wait while this happens, however. We will be calling on you in the coming months with more ways to help protect Kalama and our climate from this mega-polluter proposed in Kalama.
After six years of working hand in hand with people in Kalama and across the Northwest, we are more committed than ever to stopping this climate disaster. Thank you for all you do to protect the river and our planet. We could not do this without you!
