The Washington Department of Ecology denied a water quality permit sought by Millennium Bulk Terminals to construct and operate one the largest coal export terminals in North America.

This project, if built, would have moved 44 million metric tons of coal annually. Coal would have been piled eight stories high and 50 football fields wide at the site, the agency said.

It said that to carry coal overseas, 1,680 new vessel transits would have been added to the Columbia River, accounting for a quarter of all traffic on the river.

In a statement, Bill Chapman, president, and CEO, says “Ecology appears to have intentionally disregarded decades of law defining the Clean Water Act to reject the water quality certification requested for Millennium’s project."

The company says it will appeal the decision and expects a "fairer and more consistent interpretation of the law."

The department says it denied the permit because the coal export terminal near Longview would have caused "significant and unavoidable harm" to nine environmental areas: air quality, vehicle traffic, vessel traffic, rail capacity, rail safety, noise pollution, social and community resources, cultural resources and tribal resources.

“After extensive study and deliberation, I am denying Millennium’s proposed coal export project,” said Ecology Director Maia Bellon in a statement. “There are simply too many unavoidable and negative environmental impacts for the project to move forward.”

Some of the environmental impacts from building the coal terminal would have included:

  • filling 24 acres of wetlands,
  • dredging 41.5 acres of the Columbia riverbed,
  • installing 537 pilings in the river for a new trestle and docks.

To carry coal to the terminal, 16 1.3-mile-long trains would have passed through the county each day. "This would have compounded already significant traffic congestion during peak commute times and affected emergency responders," the agency says.

Additional environmental repercussions are detailed in the project’s environmental impact statement published in April.

Millennium needed the state’s water quality certification under the federal Clean Water Act before it could fill wetlands and dredge the riverbed.