On October 22, the First Unitarian Church in Portland hosted an in-depth forum on two proposed LNG terminals. Speaking were Dan Serres, Columbia Riverkeeper's Conservation Director; Charlie Miller, retired ocean ecologist and OSU Professor; Jacqueline Keeler, Navajo/Yankton Sioux wrtier and activist whose family has been fighting the Keystone XL pipeline; Cheryl Johnson, resident of Clatsop County who helped stop an LNG facility on the coast; Pamela Ordway, landowner in southern Oregon impacted by proposed pipeline; Alex Harris, who organized a 232-mile resistance hike along the proposed LNG pipeline route called "Hike the Pipe!;" and a representative of Portland Rising Tide.
For the past decade, Oregon has faced numerous schemes to transport methane through proposed Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminals and their related pipelines through our beloved forests, under our iconic rivers and watersheds, and across fertile private farms and fields. Ten years ago, corporate interests made a move to import LNG into Oregon by proposing terminals in both the north and south of the state - Oregon LNG near Astoria, Jordan Cove in Coos Bay and Bradwood Landing on the Columbia River. Over the next five years, resistance from a diverse coalition of landowners, environmentalists and climate activists culminated in then-Governor Kulongoski challenging federal approvals of Jordan Cove and Bradwood LNG. Both projects failed as LNG import terminals, and Bradwood LNG went bankrupt completely.
The specter of natural gas pipelines and LNG terminals, however, has not disappeared. The Jordan Cove project has returned, this time as a proposed LNG export terminal, and the Columbia River is still threatened by Oregon LNG which also hopes to export natural gas from the northern coast.
- KBOO