05/17/2026
The review drew roughly 3,000 comments, the Army Corps said.
“The big thing, when confronted with something like a 7,000-page document, is not to give up," Posert said.
Among a few of his takeaways:
One number stuck with Posert: 661,000 cubic yards. That's the volume of sediment required to fill in the wetlands at the project site. Spread evenly along U.S. 30, he calculated that much fill would create a nearly 17-inch-deep layer all the way from Astoria to Portland.
• Cancer risks: The cancer risk assessment was completed, yet the excess lifetime cancer risk number - which estimates how many additional cancer cases could occur over a lifetime due to exposure to a pollutant - never appears in the body of the review, according to his letter.
• Outdated technology: In late 2025, NXTClean Fuels selected a new technology to convert oils and fats into biofuels. Yet all of the emission, air-quality, cancer-risk and safety analyses are based on a previous technology and design, Posert says.
• Residents and farms voices: Great Vow Zen
Monastery, 0.6 miles from the site and inside the study area, was omitted from noise, air, view and pollution analyses, Posert says, as were some area residents and farms, including those growing organic crops. Clatskanie residents were also left out, he adds, even though they would experience a substantial increase in train and barge traffic as well as added spill and emergency response risks. Financial risk: The review does not assess what would happen if the $3.5 billion refinery project stalled or failed once the wetlands have been permanently filled in, despite the collapse of the company's plan to go public, Posert wrote.
• Substandard levee: The review says the site is protected by an accredited levee even though the Army Corps itself previously found it fails flood-protection standards, according to a Corps report referenced in Posert's letter. If the levee system were to break, up to 82 million gallons of fuels, industrial chemicals and feedstocks such as vegetable oil stored at the refinery could spill into the Columbia River and the local drainage district, harming nearby farms, homes and protected salmon, Posert says.
Bob Posert, a retired systems architect and Zen practitioner of 25 years, says a draft environmental review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is full of flaws and omissions.
