Save Tacoma Water carefully researched these water protection petitions, waiting months for some of our public records requests to be fulfilled. We found that only one fresh water user uses an incredible amount of fresh water each day – WestRock, or more commonly known as Simpson Kraft Paper Mill. That company uses a staggering 15.52 million gallons of fresh water daily. That paper mill has been a part of Tacoma’s history since 1928 when the plant was first built, it is still in operation today and is grandfathered in under a provision in the water protection petitions we are currently collecting signatures on.

No other industry comes close to using that amount of fresh water daily, in fact, of the other 9 top fresh water users, not one of them uses enough water to trigger a public vote – that is how reasonable the water protection petitions are.

The scare put into us by the sponsors of the largest methanol plant in the world was a wake up call to Tacomans. Save Tacoma Water filed the water protection petitions to prevent super huge water users from sneaking into our community like Northwest Innovation Works tried to do. The water protection petitions are our insurance that this won’t happen again in the future. Requiring a public vote by the people to approve an industry that wants to use more than a million gallons of fresh water daily is necessary to ensure a full discussion ensues when the next super huge fresh water user comes to town.