Coal Age

SEP 2013

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transport tips continued Transloading site at Port Westward. Panamax vessels will be moored alongside the dock at the end of the abandoned railroad trestle. Ambre's transloading vessel will come alongside Panamax vessels and be secured for the transloading operation. No coal will be placed on the ground, and the site will remain as it is shown in this photo. (Photo courtesy of Anderson-Perry Engineering) ing the Decker mine. BNSF cannot originate coal from the Hanna Basin mines of southwestern Wyoming. UP's direct route to the Port of Morrow goes through Pocatello, Idaho, but does not go through any Washington cities. It is apparent that coal originations in northern Wyoming and Montana, both BNSF-only states, would require joint hauls necessitating cooperation between BNSF and UP. The two railroads have already decided that BNSF-originated trains would hand off to UP in Spokane. At the Port of Morrow, unit trains would be unloaded by a dust-suppressed in-line rotary dump facility onto a tubeenclosed conveyor belt. The conveyor would move the coal quietly and cleanly into a dust-controlled covered storage area, where it would await reclamation. Stored coal would be reclaimed into covered barges via tube-enclosed conveyor belts. Permits Received The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality finally issued three draft permits in May related to Ambre's Port of Morrow Project. The three draft permits released were the Standard Air Contaminant Discharge Permit, Industrial Wastewater Permit and Stormwater Construction Discharge. The process dragged on for a suspiciously long period—Ambre Energy initially applied for the permits in February 2012—but it's moving again, and representatives said the project, barring further delays, could be operational as soon as early 2015. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) announced in June that it won't 22 www.coalage.com Coal transloading operation at Port Westward. The illustration shows a Siwertell-equipped unloading vessel between coal barges and an ocean vessel. conduct a sweeping review of Ambre's proposed coal facilities. The USACE declined to conduct a programmatic review of coal export facilities in the Northwest, which would receive coal from mines in Wyoming, Montana, and perhaps Colorado and Utah. This was not the extreme position environmentalists had hoped for, but was a refreshing reminder that the Corps is in the business of issuing or denying permits, not working hand-inglove with environmental activists for the express purpose of blocking coal terminals. Even so, Anderson Perry & Associates, a Pacific Northwest engineering firm, prepared a 553-page environmental review at Ambre's expense for the Coyote Island terminal dock at the Port of Morrow, a report that is available online at www.morrowpacific.com/resources. Federal officials were prodded to conduct "a programmatic and comprehensive environmental impact statement." Corps officials suggested in unredacted portions of emails that they were unlikely to conduct a programmatic assessment, which would evaluate greenhouse gases and other potential global impacts of exporting PRB coal to Asian countries. A programmatic environmental impact statement, or EIS, would almost certainly add lengthy delays to the permitting process for the projects. Opponents of coal export facilities know that one way to discourage coal development is through a constant barrage of unsubstantiated accusations and analysis paralysis. Drag the process out as long as possible while businesses striving to meet relevant standards burn through millions of dollars, eventually giving up. Manipulate the process in order to achieve the outcome of the policy you wish you had. This despicable tactic goes back at least as far as the 1970s, when Southern California Edison finally gave up on its Kaiparowits Plateau coal mining and power production plans. They spent more than $25 million reacting to every whim of the Sierra Club and other environmentalists before throwing in the towel. Transloading Coal to Clean Vessels at Port Westward Significantly, the Morrow Pacific Project would stop ocean-going vessels 53 miles inland on the Columbia River, far short of Portland. No one would ever see an oceangoing Ambre coal vessel in the middle or upper reaches of the river. The downstream dock at the Port of St. Helens (Port Westward) would only be used for two things: mooring the vessel for loading and parking the transloader vessel while waiting for the next vessel to load. It is important to understand that while the Portland General Electric Co. (PG&E;) has objected to Kinder Morgan's coal terminal proposal at the Port of St. Helens, both Ambre and the Port of St. Helens have received PG&E;'s tacit approval for the transloading operation. The Kinder Morgan proposal was unrelated to the Morrow Pacific Project. Columbia Pacific Biorefinery (CPBR) is a co-located user of the dock facility. Ambre has worked closely with them to make the repairs needed on the existing dock. CPBR has also applied for a Corps Section 10 permit for a dock to be located upstream of the existing dock. The current dock is for multiple users, and not for September 2013

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