Proposed silicon smelter in Newport clears hurdle

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The more than three-year effort to bring a silicon smelter to Northeast Washington has cleared a hurdle after the Pend Oreille County hearing examiner denied an opposition group's effort to stop the county from changing how the proposed smelter site near Newport, Washington, and other public lands are zoned.

The Spokesman-Review reports that Responsible Growth(asterisk)Northeast Washington, the group that filed the appeal, responded by vowing to fight on, while PacWest Silicon, the company behind the smelter project, promised to see the project through.

Jayson Tymko, president of PacWest, said he was pleased to see the county on Wednesday deny the appeal and keep the path open for the proposed smelter site to be zoned as industrial.

Like some 65% of Pend Oreille County, the proposed smelter site south of Newport and the Pend Oreille River and adjacent to Idaho is currently zoned as public land, a designation that comes with few immediately permissible uses and that bars the industrial development PacWest has proposed.

For the smelter to move forward, the 188-acre site will have to be rezoned. But the county has proposed rezoning not only this four-parcel plot but also the rest of the county land zoned as public land.

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