A $400 million potash shipping facility, and its 40 to 50 fulltime jobs, will not be coming to Hoquiam. The facility was to be located at the Port of Grays Harbor’s Terminal 3 near Bowerman Field. After years of discussions, BHP, the global mining company behind the proposal, withdrew its shoreline permit application with the City of Hoquiam Friday.
“Despite significant constructive engagement, and previous changes to our environmental permit application to address some specific requests, local stakeholder groups continue to express concerns and regulators have identified further processes to be completed and resolved for the proposed facility,” read a BHP statement.
BHP, in response to public comment, had refiled its permit application with more environmental mitigation in August 2019. Its initial application was filed in late September 2018.
The statement continued, “BHP does not believe we would be able to address these outstanding issues in the planned development time frame or Stage 1 of the Jansen Potash Project, and have thus withdrawn our permit applications for the proposed facility at the Port of Grays Harbor.
Local reaction
“I’m just more than devastated,” said 19th District State Representative Brian Blake, D-Aberdeen. “This was a really good fit for Grays Harbor.”
He blamed the lengthy, complicated and unpredictable permit application process for BHP’s withdrawal from the county. Projects such as that require permits from local, state and federal agencies.
“We’ve got to work on having a regulatory permitting process that is more predictable,” he said. “The permitting process should always have strong protections, but it sounds like the permitting process was not predictable and the company decided to go elsewhere.”
“I think there was some opposition to the project and any time a major project is delayed for any reason you start to lose opportunities,” said Hoquiam Mayor Ben Winkelman.
He said the permit withdrawal from BHP “was a bit of a surprise for me for sure. A few weeks ago I thought things were progressing OK. I feel like the Port, the city, we all did everything we could to make this happen, and I know a lot of people have an enormous amount of time and money invested in the project, so it was a surprise to hear they were just going to pull the plug.”
“While we are incredibly disappointed to lose this significant opportunity not just for our community, but for our state and our nation, I am grateful to BHP for the lessons we have learned about what community engagement and the environmental permitting process can and should look like,” shared Port of Grays Harbor Executive Director Gary Nelson. “This was our project to lose and unfortunately, as I have said many times in the past, time kills deals. For rural economic development to thrive, we have to be able to provide prospective investors and employers with clearly defined requirements, along with timelines for the path forward. After five years, we collectively were not able to do that for the BHP project.”
“Regulatory reform that address permit timelines, clarity in the regulations and certainty of permit approval for applicants that meet the requirements, must be made at the state and federal level if Hoquiam and Grays Harbor are ever going to recoup some of the manufacturing and industrial family wage jobs that have been lost over the years,” said Winkelman.
The process
Since the city’s shoreline permit application public hearing in October, 2019, which packed the City Council chambers, the deadline for a decision by the hearing examiner has been extended several times, most recently to Sept. 15, said City Administrator Brian Shay just last week.
When the deadline was extended in April, Shay told the City Council the company and the Quinault Indian Nation were working on details regarding treaty rights. At the meeting, Shay said, “Ultimately, the tribe felt that in addition to (environmental) mitigation that needed to be done for the permits, they needed to look at impacts to tribal treaty rights outside the city regulations,” and that BHP was working with the tribe to address those concerns.
Requests for comment from the Quinault Indian Nation over the holiday weekend were not immediately returned.
Port commissioners
“Our rail served, deep-water marine-industrial sites remain a major asset for economic growth and the Port of Grays Harbor will continue to pursue opportunities to attract partners wanting to utilize our infrastructure and willing to invest in and be a partner in our community,” stated Port of Grays Harbor Commission President Stan Pinnick. “We will also look to work with our tribal leaders and state and federal elected officials to help improve the current permitting processes so that businesses like BHP, and REG and Contanda before them, don’t have to waste multiple years and millions of dollars on a process that has no end.”
“My predecessor on the Commission, Chuck Caldwell, impressed upon me what a great opportunity the BHP potash export facility was for Grays Harbor. In my time on the Commission I have confirmed that belief. It would have been a game changer, not only for our community, but also at the state and national level. As Director Nelson told me early on, ‘Don’t let the ups and downs of the job overwhelm you. Stay focused on the big picture and the unique attributes the Harbor has to offer prospective investors.’ This announcement is testing my internal fortitude to stay focused and positive,” shared Commissioner Phil Papac.
“In my short time on the Port Commission, but lifetime of business experience, it was clear that BHP was a top-notch partner, both professionally and financially. This is a real miss for our community, but as we have shown so many times before, we are resilient,” stated Commissioner Tom Quigg.
Winkelman said he is working on other potential local investment that may not have the level of investment BHP’s potash project but would have had may actually result in more jobs for Grays Harbor workers.
“I am personally motivated by set-backs,” he said. “We have no choice but to try to re-create our future and find an industry that works well here.”
British Columbia
The Port was one of two possible locations for the facility, the other the Fraser Surrey Docks in British Columbia. BHP said Friday it was still pursuing development of that facility, and other potential locations.
“BHP said all along this was just one of the ports they were considering, and I think we always knew there was a chance they would go in a different direction,” said Blake.
According to a Port statement, BHP had been working with the Port and other stakeholders since 2015. Community outreach included well attended open house presentations at the Rotary Log Pavilion in Aberdeen and, in 2017, a well-attended open house at Hoquiam High School. In the years that followed, representatives from BHP were constantly traveling to the region to work with stakeholders and permitting agencies to hash out a workable proposal.
Along with the jobs and local investment, the City of Hoquiam will miss out on what would have been an estimated $3.5-4 million in construction tax money had the proposal broken ground. During his campaign for mayor in 2019, Winkelman said that money could have been leveraged as matching funds for grants to improve infrastructure to mitigate some concerns what increased rail traffic could have had on local traffic.
COURTESY BHP This map of the proposed BHP potash facility at the Port of Grays Harbor’s Terminal 3 was included with the company’s shoreline permit application with the City of Hoquiam.
