Hoquiam presents more of a challenge. If Nucor decides to build in Washington, it will likely have a long environmental process. The Bowerman Basin refuge would be next to the company's 30-foot tall scrap heaps. The plan calls for Nucor to use the airport property to store scrap and rail cars. At other mills, the scrap is piled about 30 feet high and railroad tracks are laid through the property.
Cranes pick up the scrap and dump it into rail cars for a short ride to the mill.
The refuge manager would like to see studies on how the noise and the lights at the mill would impact the refuge. The current site has birds, airplanes and some traffic whizzing by. But there's no planes at night. With this mill and plant it's going to be an obviously quite visible and a dramatic change in the environment, that's for sure. Nucor is working on preliminary noise and air pollution tests in Grays Harbor and both Oregon sites.