Port of St. Helens aims to be renewable energy hotbed

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Port Westward industrial park

The Port of St. Helens is embarking on an expansion that could make its Port Westward industrial park one of the state’s hotbeds for renewable energy development.

In March the port approved a deal for more than 850 acres, nearly doubling the industrial park’s 904-acre footprint

It also approved an option to buy another 574 acres.

Executive Director Gerry Meyer said the port’s plan is to develop Port Westward into an energy park, using its deep-water access, electricity transmission infrastructure and rail system as bait to lure prospective green developers.

Already, port officials have reached a deal with Colorado-based Community Energy Systems LLC, which plans to break ground later this year on a multi-phase biomass energy and industrial waste recycling development that is expected to cost more than $200 million.

Meyer said the port expects to ink another deal with a biomass energy developer within the next two months.

"We’re getting folks from all around the country interested in this site," Meyer said.

The Port of St. Helens covers much of Columbia County, including five industrial parks, the Scappoose Bay Marina and the Scappoose Industrial Airport. It is about 30 miles northwest of Portland.

But its biggest growth potential lies within the 900-acre Port Westward development north of Clatskanie along the Columbia River.

The former U.S. Army ammunition depot is now home to two Portland General Electric natural gas-fired power plants and the ethanol production facility once operated by the now-bankrupt Cascade Grain Products.

Even without the new land acquisitions, Port Westward’s prospects were improving.

Already under development at Port Westward is a 90,000-square-foot plastic bottle recycling facility.

The project, which could cost as much as $25 million and employ 100, is the product of ORPET, a partnership between the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative and a team of leaders from the plastics recycling industry.

The Cascade Grain plant also could see new life.

Longview, Wash., construction firm J.H. Kelly acquired the plant out of bankruptcy and is entertaining offers from at least two interested buyers.

The port hopes a deal for the plant can be concluded within the next few months.

Columbia County Commissioner Tony Hyde said Port Westward’s potential for growth is possible thanks to collaborations between the port, the county and the state to build up the site’s infrastructure.

In the past decade, around $24 million has been spent on improvements to roads, a water supply system and rail infrastructure, paid for by various sources including state and federal grants and significant tax-increment financing by the county.

Hyde said the commission is on a quest to reverse an economic decline in that section of the county, where census data from 1990 and 2000 showed negative growth.

"It was to me the most blighted part of the county. Now it has a real future," Hyde said. "I have high expectations. I truly do. I’m really expecting some great things out of our investment there."

The deal with Community Energy Systems is a sign that those expectations are realistic.

Brett Kencairn, the company’s vice president for program development, said the plan is to break ground by the end of the year on the project’s first phase.

The first phase includes facilities capable of turning green waste and construction waste into a natural gas product, which will be fed into an initial 3-megawatt electric generation plant.

By the end of 2011, the company hopes to have the initial work completed, along with an expansion to 25 megawatts of electricity production, representing a roughly $100 million investment.

Kencairn said the company hopes to later develop a facility that will turn its waste-produced natural gas into biodiesel, a project that will more than double the size of the investment.

Meyer said with Port Westward’s abundance of resources — most critically its available land and ready-to-use infrastructure — has so much potential for development that “the possibilities are endless.”

"There are just not pieces of property (this size) available anymore," Meyer said. "With the rail infrastructure we’ve put in, we just feel like we’ve really got something."