Enviva Holdings LP has submitted a stormwater and erosion control plan to the City of Wilmington as the first step toward gaining approval for its proposed wood pellet export facility at the Port of Wilmington.

The document will go to city staff for review, said city spokeswoman Malissa Talbert.

“The project will be reviewed by the appropriate TRC (Technical Review Committee) staff, but it will not go through full TRC [review],” she said in an email Thursday.  [Enviva] will have to get a storm water management permit, which is issued by the city.”

Construction and operation of the facility is the result of an agreement forged between the N.C. State Ports Authority and Enviva last spring. According to that agreement – outlined in a June 4 news release on the N.C. Ports Authority website - Enviva would finance the facility’s construction, estimated at about $35 million, and would be responsible for operating it. The initial lease term would be 21 years, with two additional 5-year renewal options, the release stated.

Company officials said Thursday that Enviva’s proposed wood pellet export facility would consist of two storage domes, each with 45,000 metric tons of pellet storage capacity. In addition, the project would include pellet-handling infrastructure including truck and rail unloading equipment and a ship loader.

The terminal is expected to have an annual handling capacity of about 2 million metric tons, officials said.  

According to the Ports Authority news release, Enviva’s facility could create about 70 new jobs and support at least 80 indirect jobs in the logging and transportation industries.

Although the release stated that final design and construction of the facility would take about 18 months and that the agreement calls for the facility to be operational by January 2015, neither the company nor the city provided specific timeline details on Thursday.

Enviva officials said that the company’s construction timeline “is pending the successful completion of applicable permitting processes.”

“Generally, if a facility is required to get a storm water permit but not subject to planning review, [Wilmington’s] engineering staff will release it for construction once our review is complete. However, we’ll know more about any required next steps about this facility in particular after staff have completed their initial review,” Talbert said in her email. “A timeline for construction/completion was not stated in their application packet, so we’re not sure when they would like to start construction."

As stated in the June Ports Authority news release, Enviva is a Maryland-based manufacturer and supplier of wood pellets to buyers in the United Kingdom and the entire European Union. It currently operates two wood pellet mills in North Carolina — one in Ahoskie and a recently-commissioned facility in Northampton. It also operates two plants in Alabama and Mississippi, with a fifth plant under construction in South Hampton County, Va.