Remote Surveillance Trailer in Longview, WA

Manufacturing, the area’s economic powerhouse, is also the reason Cowlitz County is an air pollution hotspot, data from the state, federal and private emission trackers reveal.

Industry, as a source of pollution, differs from the rest of the state, where the largest contributors to poor air quality are generally wood-burning stoves, wildfires and vehicles.

That reality highlights the longstanding tension between the county’s economic health, which depends on manufacturing jobs, and its broader environmental health, which is shaped by pollution from some of the area’s largest local employers.

“With everything, there’s going to be a trade-off,” county Commissioner Steve Rader said. “And ultimately, what we have to do is measure risk to reward.”

A lack of detailed local environmental health data and county-specific research on health impacts complicates the situation, leaving residents with only a partial picture of how the county’s economic lifeblood may — or may not — be affecting their health.

“We’re still at a place where real clear risk assessment is still kind of in its early stages,” Dr. Steven Krager, Cowlitz County’s health officer, said.

A manufacturing economy

Cowlitz County has more than twice the percentage of people working in manufacturing as Washington at large, a Daily News’ analysis of state data shows. Eighteen percent of Cowlitz’s workforce works in industry compared to 8% in other parts of Washington.

That large manufacturing footprint pays off for the county, with the sector generating about $600 million in wages alone in 2023, the most recent year data is available. That’s hundreds of millions more than the next largest sectors, government and health care.

Those wages could mean a higher quality of life for Cowlitz County.

Though state data doesn’t show what sectors county residents work in, U.S. Census data shows about 58% of county residents also work inside the county.

Less than one in five Cowlitz County residents have a college degree compared to more than one in three for the U.S. at large, census data also shows. Yet the county’s median household income is only about 10% lower.

Jobs in manufacturing may be credited for the extra boost: State employment data indicates employees working in that sector in the county made an average of $82,429 in 2023.

That means they earned more as individuals than the median household both in the county and around the country at large.

A toxic trade-off?

With roughly 1,500 employees between the two according to state data, Longview’s Smurfit Westrock and Nippon Dynawave paper mills employ the largest share of the roughly 7,400 people in Cowlitz County who work in manufacturing. Paper manufacturing workers also make more than $20,000 more than peers in manufacturing.

But while the facilities are two of the county’s biggest employers, data shows they’re also two of its biggest emitters of air pollution.

The two are in the top 10 largest industrial emitters in Washington of a dangerous microscopic pollutant known as PM 2.5, as well as nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxides in Washington, 2023 Ecology Department data shows. The Clean Air Act requires the government to set standards and monitor these pollutants.

That pattern holds without a single exception for the previous five years, a Daily News analysis reveals.

For example, Nippon Dynawave emitted 2,161 tons of nitrogen oxides in 2023, the second-most behind Centralia’s Big Hanaford power plant. Smurfit Westrock emitted the eighth-most with 813 tons that year. And the two held their spots, with Nippon Dynawave staying in second, all five years. Smurfit Westrock flipped among the sixth, seventh and eighth positions.

The two facilities also emit hundreds of tons of volatile organic compounds into the air each year.

A spokesperson for Nippon Dynawave declined to comment. A Smurfit Westrock spokesman also declined to comment specifically but said the company is in compliance with its air quality permits.

Nippon Dynawave, which was included in a 2021 ProPublica report on U.S. air quality because it releases low levels of carcinogens into the air, has also been the second largest industrial emitter of carbon monoxide in recent years, Ecology data shows. The first again has been Centralia’s power plant.

And while carbon dioxide emissions aren’t included in the Ecology dataset, Smurfit Westrock is the only emitter that satellite imagery-based greenhouse gas-mapping service Carbon Mapper has identified in Washington. (Carbon Mapper’s scans do not cover the entirety of the state. Its three main coverage holes are around Aberdeen, as well as on the north and central Cascade Mountains.)

State officials said last year that Longview’s Smurfit Westrock plant also “likely caused” a mysterious odor that drew widespread attention as it hovered over southwest Washington last September.

No other companies in Southwest Washington released the same volume of emissions as the two mills, but the following entities released significant emissions some years:

Southwest Washington Clean Air Agency data from 2020 also shows Emerald Kalama Chemical released some volatile organic compounds into the air, including about 5 tons of toluene, an industrial solvent, that year and 2 tons of benzene.

Carbon Mapper imagery also shows the Headquarters Landfill near Castle Rock is the region’s only consistent emitter of methane. Representatives from Cowlitz County’s public works department could not immediately be reached, but the agency is working with Cowlitz PUD on a $40 million project to put that gas to work generating power.

Health risks?

So what exactly are all those pollutants, and what do they mean for Cowlitz County residents’ health?

For starters, while carbon dioxide and methane cause climate warming, they aren’t harmful to our health, said Krager, Cowlitz County’s health officer.

Instead, the most concerning pollutants in the region are ozone — which is formed when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds combine in the sun — and the particulate matter known as PM 2.5, Uri Papish said. Papish is executive director of the Southwest Washington Clean Air Agency, which monitors, regulates and enforces clear air standards in the region.

“Those are where we bump up against health standards,” he said. “We meet all the health standards, but we’ll occasionally have bad air quality days where we can get over a health standard for those two pollutants.”

In fact, state air quality data shows Longview spent large chunks of the fall, winter and spring above “healthy” standards in “moderate” and occasionally in the zone known as “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups.”

Papish said generally, industrial pollution actually contributes little to those health alerts. Instead, he said, the main drivers are woodstoves, wildfires and people driving.

But that’s not true in Cowlitz County. The most recent detailed emission source data from the state shows that Cowlitz County not only bucks the trend but strongly reverses it: Cowlitz County emitted more nitrogen oxides pollution than Clark County in 2020, despite having a population less than one-fourth the size.

The difference boils down to industrial emissions.

In Clark County, industrial nitrogen oxides emissions made up 2% of the county’s total 2020 emissions. Compare that with pollution from motor vehicles, which was 52% there. In Cowlitz County, drivers contributed 24% air pollution, while industrial-sourced pollution made up 51%. In sum, Cowlitz County emitted about 24 times more industrial nitrogen oxides emissions than Clark.

That trend extends beyond just Clark County to the state at large. Cowlitz County’s industrial nitrogen oxides emissions made up 13% of Washington’s total industrial nitrogen oxides emissions in 2020 — despite only being home to 1% of the population.

And those trends extend to industrial PM 2.5 and volatile organic compounds emissions in Cowlitz County, data shows.

And while the county mostly stays below federal standards, those emissions can cause health issues for people exposed to them, said Krager, the county’s health officer.

“Especially in places that have high, consistent levels of (nitrogen oxides), there’s higher rates of just asthma in general, and then elevated mortality and cardiovascular mortality,” he said.

The same is true for PM 2.5, he said, adding that those problems also occur with massive one-time pollution events like wildfires. Studies associate each of the three pollutants — nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds and PM 2.5 — with a handful of cancers.

State health data shows some of the highest rates of cardiovascular disease in Cowlitz County are near the region’s biggest industrial emitters in Longview.

But without focused research and detailed on-the-ground data, Krager cautioned there isn’t nearly enough information to say the county’s pollution is causing health issues.

Dr. Joel Kaufman, echoed that conclusion. He’s been a physician-epidemiologist at the University of Washington School of Public Health for about 25 years and is director of its Center for Exposures, Diseases, Genomics & Environment, which studies environmental health.

Kaufman said it’s hard to model how plumes of pollution act.

“If people live across the street from these things, that’s one thing,” he said. “However, if they live 2 miles upwind, it might not mean anything.”

A balancing act

“I’m pro-business, but I’m also pro-health,” county Commissioner Rader said. “The important thing to do is to really just to try to strike a balance to where we’re not sacrificing one for the other.”

For him, that balance looks like all parties communicating and local politicians not jumping to anti-business policies as a “knee-jerk reaction” unless it’s clear something is actually harming health, Rader said, which is not the case in the county right now.

“We also don’t want to go too far to the extreme,” he added, “to where we say, ‘Hey, just do what you want and pollute our air, pollute our water, and we’ll deal with it when the time comes.’”

While environmental health research is hard, Krager said, the county, state and county all have made significant advancements.

“We’ve made a lot of progress in general, just as a country, in terms of monitoring pollutants, and cleaning up our air in a lot of ways,” Krager said, “but there’s still a long ways to go.”

As a beloved Longview pizzeria prepares to close its doors at the end of the month, customers are driving from as far away as Idaho and braving hour-plus waits for a final taste.

Bruno’s Pizza, which has been owned by the same family since the 1980s — and has been serving Cowlitz County since the 1970s — will serve its final pizza at the end of the business day Sunday, Oct. 26.

For Ruby and Omer Mughal, daughter and son of longtime owner John Mughal, Bruno’s has been their world.

“We grew up here, this is our whole life,” Omer said between the lunch and dinner rushes Thursday afternoon.

He and his sister recounted memories big and small. Omer pointed to a wall section near the front entrance where his sister taught him how to tie his shoes.

Ruby’s voice cracked with emotion as she thought about the loyal customers over the years who have become close friends. She gave all the credit for the restaurant’s success to her father and the way the community embraced him and his business.

“Omer and I were really blessed to have that passed down to us,” Ruby said. “My parents were so incredible with what they did here.”

From Pakistan to Pietro’s Pizza

John Mughal immigrated from Pakistan to Longview. According to a 2016 profile, he originally came to the area to pursue an education at Lower Columbia College in the 1970s, and ended up finding his calling with a part-time job at Pietro’s Pizza, according to a 2015 profile in The Daily News.

Pietro’s — first founded in Longview in the late 1950s, but now down to three locations in Oregon — was a rapidly growing chain across the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s that was owned by the Campbell’s Soup Company at the time.

John Mughal’s management career grew with the company. At one point in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he oversaw nine separate stores before he bought Bruno’s and its recipes from founders Dick and Linda Erickson in the 1980s.

Omer and Ruby’s recollection didn’t quite match what’s in The Daily News archives, which say that the pizza place moved to its current location at 1108 Washington Way in 1987. Ruby and Omer remember their family buying Brunos closer to the mid-1980s, and that the location was originally a hamburger and fried chicken business that didn’t take off.

Rumors on social media swirl that Bruno’s carries original Pietro’s recipes. Ruby dismissed that claim, and said that the Pietro’s influence was a common one among northwest pizzerias of that era because the chain was where so many in the business got their start.

Reasons for saying goodbye

The Mughals are private people, so they did not want to share much more about their decision to close the business beyond what the family said in a Sept. 23 post describing a “recent health scare” that “made us realize we are running out of time to spend together as family.”

Omer said the family had for about a year been considering winding down the business “someday.” After the health scare, “that someday needed to be now.”

Another reason for winding down the business was the hours Omer and Ruby put into the business. Omer said the last time they spent more than two nights out of town was a trip to Las Vegas in 2012.

“We just don’t have the time that we used to,” Omer said.

Since the announcement, Omer and Ruby said they’ve needed to take the receiver off the hook during rushes because the phone keeps ringing with orders.

“A lot of people are getting their last pizzas,” Omer said.

Those dining in or ordering carry-out are waiting an hour, hour and a half at times.

Customers are sending flowers, dropping off cards and coming in with memories. Earlier that day, one customer shared photos of their wedding rehearsal dinner at Bruno’s.

“It’s just been unreal the support that we’ve gotten,” Omer said.

As welcome as the enthusiastic rush of orders is, it’s also a challenge as they wind down a business.

“We’re running out of everything,” Omer said.

The chair of Lower Columbia College's Board of Trustees estimated the change could cost tens of thousands of dollars for LCC.

Editor’s note: Longview Mayor Spencer Boudreau confirmed that he plans to pull this proposal from the upcoming agenda. Stay with KOIN 6 for continuing coverage after Thursday’s meeting.

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Following the deadly shooting of right-wing advocate Charlie Kirk, leaders of a Southwest Washington city are considering designating a street in his honor.

Later this week, the Longview City Council is scheduled to discuss renaming the section of Maple Street from Olympia Way to Washington Way to “Charlie Kirk Way.” The proposal was introduced by Council Member Erik Halvorson and supported by Council Member Keith Young, according to the upcoming agenda.

“WHEREAS, the City Council of Longview recognizes the importance of honoring individuals who have made significant contributions to the advancement of free speech, civic engagement, and the American constitutional tradition; and WHEREAS, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, dedicated his life to advocating for the First Amendment rights of students across the nation, ensuring that college campuses remain places of open dialogue, freedom of expression, and robust debate,” Resolution No. 2578 reads, in part.

In addition to the renaming, the proposal would direct Longview staff to implement the change by updating maps, signage and public records. It would also direct the city clerk to engage with the county and state office employees whose public records will be impacted by the change.

The resolution noted that the renaming would affect Lower Columbia College, which is currently located on 1600 Maple St. Although the policy claims the institution “represents the very type of campus where the principles of free expression and intellectual diversity must be preserved and protected,” the college has pushed back on the proposal.

In a letter sent to the city last week, LCC stated that a new address would have implications on areas such as branding, digital presence and communications with federal and state agencies. The letter also argued that the change could lead to a decline in student services, noting the college’s ongoing attempts to reduce its budget.

Marc Silva, chair of LCC’s Board of Trustees, estimated that the resolution could cost tens of thousands of dollars for the institution. The chair added that the college has been part of the Longview community for more than 90 years, with 75 located at its current address.

“Our commitment has always been to expand educational opportunities, prepare students for the workforce, and support the well-being of Cowlitz and Wahkiakum Counties,” Silva wrote in a letter to officials on Tuesday. “Redirecting funds to accommodate and address change would take away from these priorities.”

Longview City Council is slated to discuss the proposal at a meeting on Thursday at 6 p.m.

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A Washington appeals court struck down a Longview restaurant’s attempt to evade a nearly $1 million fine for violating COVID-19 restrictions.

The Washington State Court of Appeals for Division II recently ruled that Stuffy’s II Restaurant must pay the $936,000 penalty it racked up while continuing operations as normal amid the pandemic.

In November 2020, former Gov. Jay Inslee updated his COVID-19 emergency proclamation to temporarily prohibit restaurants and bars from offering indoor dine-in service. While businesses were still allowed to offer outdoor dining and to-go service, the opinion issued by Judge Rebecca Glasgow on Aug. 12 revealed that Stuffy’s II failed to comply by serving customers indoors for 52 days.

KOIN 6 reported that the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries initially issued a restraining order and imposed a fine of $126,000 on the business. Court documents show the agency established a base penalty of $1,800 per violation, which increased tenfold when regulators determined the violations were “willful” — meaning another $18,000 was added for each day that Stuffy’s continued in-person service.

According to the opinion, an appeal from the restaurateurs — who do business as Duling Enterprises — argued they were unable to pay the penalties. They also claimed the dollar amount was “excessive” under state and federal restrictions. But the Washington State Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals affirmed the previous decision, as did a superior court.

One of the state’s appeals courts is reaffirming the citations once again, arguing that Stuffy’s owners failed to prove their “gross disproportionality” of the fines.

“Duling submitted tax returns indicating that it operated at a loss in 2020,” Judge Glasgow wrote. “But this information alone is insufficient for us to conclude that Duling was unable to pay the fines. The record also indicates that Duling received a loan under the Paycheck Protection Program, and there is nothing in the record about what savings or assets Duling had. Duling had ample opportunities to provide additional documentation and deposition testimony to support its contention that it was unable to pay the fine and it did not do so.”

Stuffy’s is currently closed, temporarily, due to a fire earlier this month.