The Real Cost to Newport and the Surrounding Communities

The Real Cost to Newport and the Surrounding Communities
 
Those who are aware of the silicon smelter to be built in Newport are also probably aware of the claimed “jobs” benefits and the alleged “100 new homes will be built” promises from Pend Oreille County officials, State officials and HiTest Sand.

Sounds good, right? None of it is true. You should know why:

Most of the jobs will be sourced from outside of the area, including construction and plant operation. A general contractor has already been selected from outside of the region (Turner Clark), they have 6000 employees already.

The need for new housing assumes that the real estate market will require additional housing for outsiders (locals don’t need more housing, they already have places to live).

The number of people who will leave this community numbers in the hundreds already – which will place a glut of houses on the market. New housing will not be needed to home the outsiders that will come to Newport taking up the smelting jobs.

Nobody will want to move to Newport or live under the shadow of a smelting plant looming over the town. Vacancies for houses, businesses will increase as people flee this area, taking their spending, tax revenue and jobs with them.

Real estate prices will fall, convincing a buyer to buy a house within the community will become increasingly difficult. Nobody wants to live near a smelting operation or anywhere within its reach.

Pend Oreille County and the State of Washington appear to have not even considered these facts. They triumph the alleged jobs angle as the only claimed benefit for the community. Very few jobs will be given to local residents. Many of the plant operation jobs a nasty, dirty and dangerous – these will be the jobs locals may get hired for. Technical positions have already been spoken for and will go to outsiders.

The alleged jobs benefits and the housing construction are being misrepresented by HiTest, Pend Oreille County and Washington State officials. Smelter supporters have failed to think this all through.

The entire character of the town will also change because of the dust, noise, pollution and traffic this gigantic monstrosity will create. The location is only ¾ of a mile above the town by air. Two giant smokestacks will loom in the sky, notifying everyone passing through here that Newport is now focused on industrial development.

This is not what our town is known for. Recreation, tourism, small town values and atmosphere will be destroyed. Nobody will want to come to a town with belching smokestacks and pollution being dumped into the local environment.

There is considerable risk of acid rain, dust exposure and unacceptable emission levels from the smelting plant that will impact the entire surrounding region. That risk cannot be eliminated. The very presence of a smelting operation creates the risk. The towns of Old Town, Albeni Falls, Priest River, Laclede and even Sandpoint can experience emissions and dust. Blanchard and Spirit Lake are also within the wind patterns.

On the Washington side, every town north is at risk (Usk, Cusick, Metaline Falls, Ione) and the entire Pend Oreille river corridor, along with Diamond Lake and Elk. Dispersal distances can range up to hundreds of miles or even further depending upon weather.

The Newport area is well known for inversions which dramatically decrease the air quality during winter. This also now happens in summer as recent fires and heavy smoke will attest to. The smelting plant promises to increase the decline in air quality 24/7, making year-round air quality standards worse – not better.

Up to 4 of these smoke stacks are expected. HiTest already has smelting plant expansion intentions for our community.

Converting the town over to industrial processing will open the door for additional industrial capacity and processing as rails, roads, power generation and land space is cleared and improved for industry. That possibility is very real – and very scary for a pristine mountain community that was known for its recreation activities.

Metallurgical grade silicon receives additional, highly toxic processing into silicon chips for photo-voltaic panels and other technologies later on. Will Newport become the future hosting community for these other industries? What else do they have in mind for Newport?

Families will move away from Newport taking their children with them, depleting the schools with an unknown number of students and Federal funding. Nobody will want to have their children exposed to the smelter while in school or on the playing fields.

Local employees will also be considering leaving, even if they live outside of the immediate area. Pollution from the plant will be right over the town, exposing employees and workers on a daily basis.

New businesses will think more then twice about whether or not it would be a sound business decision to invest in this community and setup business here. Those that will come are what we do not want – more industry and more pollutive activities. They will try to come because the door for industrial opportunity here will be swung wide open. 

Roads will be built, modified and expanded for heavy truck traffic.  Loading and unloading of trucks and trains may require expansion of the existing railway and yards. There is limited space for these developments. Large new roads will also be built to accommodate plant traffic.

Traffic congestion promises to increase significantly, as trucks, trains and traffic increasingly clog up the roadways. This will place an enormous strain on the existing arteries and will require new construction of any bridges used and expansion and improvement of the roadways to accommodate heavy truck traffic.

Once all that is in place, the area will become even more attractive to additional industries because the infrastructure will now exist. This is the pattern exhibited in other smelting towns.

The town will change – forever. These improvements are for the most part, non-beneficial for local businesses, residents, families and local employees, which will have to endure these changes whether they like it or not.

The financial cost upon the City of Newport will be enormous, resulting in levies and tax increases expected of property owners. Property taxes are already exorbitant and will keep going up.

New Fire District resources, funding and equipment will be also required in order to provide more capacity and safety for the area. We will have to pay for that too.

Additional Sheriff office staff, funding and equipment will also be required as the community attempts to accommodate the influx of traffic and people.

While growth for our community is needed – and some of these things are also needed, we must all keep in mind that we are not going to be the primary beneficiaries of this growth – a Canadian company will be. They don’t even live here and have already found ways to avoid paying taxes here. They are not 'investing in our town' - they are investing in their profits.

The impact upon us who live here will be enormous. What few benefits that the community may actually receive are heavily outweighed by the numerous negative impacts certain to happen – and I’ve deliberately refrained from mentioning the environmental impacts again which you should read.

We must all seriously contemplate the reality of what it means to have the nations largest silicon smelting operation located right next to our town (3/4 of a mile away by air) and what it will actually mean for all of us. There are exceedingly few “positives” and a great many “negatives”.  I can't list them all and there are indeed more. But we already know enough to know that resistance to the smelter is imperative.