The Millennium Bulk Terminals project at the mouth of Washington state’s Columbia River will be subject to a coordinated environmental assessment by Washington’s Department of Ecology, Cowlitz County and the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Much emphasis has been put on whether the Corps’ environmental impact statement will consider the cumulative, planetary impacts of driving coal to foreign markets.

Under a memorandum of understanding signed recently between the Corps and the state agencies, the scoping phase of the assessment will open this issue to the public comment.

The Department of Ecology said the group would call for community comment on defining the terminal’s potentially affected resources and the extent to which the EIS would analyse those resources.

A determination that the relevant impact of Millennium includes the greenhouse emissions emitted by Asian coal customers could have serious implications on the scope of one of the most ambitious of the region’s proposed export facilities.

Millennium, which is owned by miners Ambre Energy and Arch Coal, would initially handle 27.5 million tons of coal per annum with a ramp-up expected to increase capacity to as much as 48.5Mtpa.

The Corps has indicated that permit approval for the project could be as much as two years away.