Environmental groups sue to stop controversial biofuel refinery on Columbia River

Environmental groups on Thursday filed a legal challenge to reverse

a key permit

for a proposed $2.5 billion biofuel refinery along the Columbia River over concerns it could pollute the water and harm salmon and other fish.

The

NEXT Renewable Fuels refinery

, owned by parent company NXTClean Fuels of Houston, plans to manufacture biofuels such as renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel at the deepwater port of Port Westward, an industrial park on the outskirts of Clatskanie in Columbia County.

Proponents consider biofuels a greener alternative to fossil fuels and hail their ability to reduce carbon emissions as a stop-gap measure before the transportation sector can move to full-on electrification. Biofuels are considered renewable because they are produced from plants and waste products such as used cooking oil – but their production can also lead to significant environmental costs.

The lawsuit, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court, asks the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to reverse

its January approval

of a

water quality certification

for the refinery. It comes after the DEQ denied Columbia Riverkeeper’s request for reconsideration.

The company needs the state permit to secure a federal permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

DEQ spokesperson Michael Loch said the agency is aware of the litigation but cannot comment on it. Department officials previously said staff had “carefully reviewed NEXT’s application for a 401 water quality certification and determined that the proposed project meets the state’s water quality standards.”

NXTClean Fuels vehemently defended the validity of its state approval.

“NEXT has designed a world-class clean fuels project that meets Oregon’s strict environmental regulations, which is why DEQ approved our water permit,” said the company’s spokesperson Michael Hinrichs. “We remain confident that approval of our water permit will be upheld.”

Those filing the suit: Columbia Riverkeeper, a Hood River-based environmental group focused on protecting the river; the Northwest Environmental Defense Center, a nonprofit that takes regulators and companies to court over what it says are weak environmental regulations; as well as two residents, a farmer who owns and farms land near the proposed refinery and a worker at the Great Vow Zen Monastery less than a mile from the refinery site.

The groups and residents argue DEQ’s approval failed to meet the full scope of state water quality standards and did not address impacts to the river and salmon species resulting from the refinery’s construction and operation.

They also allege the agency failed to assess the seismic vulnerability of the project or impose any seismic resiliency conditions on the refinery even though it will be built in a liquefaction zone, an area where the soil acts like a liquid during a strong earthquake, and is separated from the Columbia River only by an aging levee system that is susceptible to failure.

Oregon tribes, though not part of the legal challenge, have also told regulators they agree with those concerns and want the proposed refinery’s permit revoked.

The DEQ previously twice denied NEXT’s application for the certification, in 2021 and 2022, “due to insufficient information to evaluate the permit application.”

RISING INDUSTRY

Biofuels have seen significant growth in recent years as governments across the world have increasingly relied on them to reduce carbon emissions and reach climate goals.

Programs in California, Oregon and Washington that encourage the adoption of low-carbon fuels have increased demand for biofuels. The

federal Renewable Fuel Standard

also requires refineries to blend a minimum volume of biofuels into the U.S. transportation fuel supply.

Renewable diesel, in particular, has seen an increase in popularity because it is chemically similar to petroleum diesel, meaning it can be directly substituted for diesel and can also be blended with diesel.

Sustainable aviation fuel – a biofuel blended with traditional jet fuel – is also having its moment as the airline industry works to reduce its carbon footprint.

As of January 2024,

the latest data available

, the U.S. had 22 renewable diesel fuel and other biofuels plants in 13 states, with a combined production of capacity of 4.3 billion gallons per year. Most of the biofuel was produced in Louisiana, California and Texas. The U.S. also imports biofuels from other countries.

Oregon currently has no biofuel refineries, though two are in the works – the Port Westward project and

Lakeview RNG

in Lake County, both owned by NXTClean Fuels.

Most U.S. biofuel is consumed in California, with a smaller percentage going to Oregon and Washington state.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS

The Port Westward refinery plans to produce up to 50,000 barrels a day – or more than 750 million gallons a year – of renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel, making it one of the largest in the U.S. The fuels would be shipped offsite via pipelines, trucks and railcars to markets in the U.S. and worldwide.

It’s still unclear how much of the biofuel would flow to Oregon or whether its production would significantly reduce emissions.

Policies at the state level and in Portland, which

in 2022 adopted a policy

to replace all petroleum diesel with biofuel by 2030, favor biofuels made with low-carbon intensity feedstocks such as cooking oil from restaurants and animal fat. Higher intensity feedstocks typically come from virgin agricultural products such as soybeans and displace food production or cause deforestation.

Environmental groups say the Columbia River refinery would likely face challenges in securing sufficient volumes of lower carbon-intensity feedstocks due to their limited availability.

NEXT has said it plans to make the biofuels at Port Westward from used cooking oil, fish grease, animal tallows and seed oils. It already has an agreement with a Vietnamese company to import fish grease, Hinrichs said. It is also in discussions with other companies for used cooking oil and animal tallows from Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Brazil and Canada, he said.

But NEXT’s

October 2023 filing

with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission estimates most of its biofuels would be made with soybean oil, U.S. Distillers Corn oil (a byproduct of the corn-to-ethanol process) and other vegetable oils.

Environmental groups have raised other concerns, including that biofuels are flammable and must be transported carefully to avoid spills into the river.

The proposed refinery also would use large volumes of fracked gas, a fossil fuel, in the production of renewable fuels, resulting in significant greenhouse gas emissions.

NEXT’s air permit

allows over 1 million tons a year of greenhouse gas emissions. For comparison, the average petroleum refinery emits 1.2 million tons per year and Intel’s two campuses are authorized to emit a combined 1.7 million tons of greenhouse gases per year.

Unless the DEQ’s certification is reversed by the court, the Army Corps of Engineers plans to issue a draft environmental impact statement for public review later this year and will evaluate whether to issue a federal water quality permit for the project.

Columbia Riverkeeper and 1000 Friends of Oregon

have filed a separate lawsuit

challenging the Army Corps’ alleged failure to protect inadequate levees at Port Westward from the refinery’s construction.

NEXT still must secure two state stormwater permits, though those are routine and typically filed after approval of the federal permit.

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— Gosia Wozniacka covers environmental justice, climate change, the clean energy transition and other environmental issues. Reach her at gwozniacka@oregonian.com or 971-421-3154.

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