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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Oregon natural gas project extinguished

The Canadian company behind the project obtained a federal permit under the Trump administration, but was stymied by state agencies and fierce local opposition.

(CN) — A liquified natural gas pipeline and export terminal planned for southern Oregon won’t move forward, according to documents filed Wednesday with federal regulators. The Canadian company behind the project said it was too hard to secure the state permits necessary to proceed.

Jordan Cove and Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corp. planned to run liquified natural gas from Alberta’s oil sands region through the 229-mile Pacific Connector Pipeline to a newly built export facility in Coos Bay, Oregon, where it would have been shipped to markets in Asia.

Jordan Cove said the project would have meant good jobs and local revenue. But tribes, environmentalists and local landowners mounted a voracious defense, claiming the project would have spewed millions of tons of carbon into the air each year, imperiled cultural resources and endangered species, and violated the rights of locals who refused to sign easements to let the company run the pipeline through their yards.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission authorized the project in March 2020, after the company and its predecessor worked for 15 years to overcome local opposition. But the federal permit was contingent on Jordan Cove’s ability to secure state water quality and land use permits. Oregon denied those, and both FERC and the U.S. Department of Commerce refused the company’s requests to waive the requirement for state permits.

That proved to be an insurmountable hurdle.

“Despite diligent and persistent efforts, applicants have not been able to obtain the necessary state-issued permits and authorizations from various Oregon state agencies,” the company said Wednesday in a filing with FERC.

State permits were the formal mechanism that held up the project, but a variety of objections from tribes, environmentalists and landowners along the proposed route kept pressure on the state to hold its ground.

“People across southern Oregon knew that it was really critical for the state to deny permits,” Allie Rosenbluth, campaigns director with Rogue Climate, told Courthouse News. “Together, we brought all sorts of arguments to the state, whether it was the impact to cultural resources that the tribes brought, or the unfairness of eminent domain from landowners or the impact on the environment that Rogue Climate brought. Today is a cumulation of this strategy.”

Central to Wednesday’s announcement was a legal challenge mounted by a coalition of tribes, landowners, about a dozen environmental groups and the state of Oregon that appealed FERC’s approval of the project to the D.C. Circuit.

In that case, Jordan Cove told the court it had “paused” its development of the project to “reassess” the likelihood of getting the needed state permits in the future. Last month, a three-judge panel for the court asked FERC to consider a stay of Jordan Cove’s federal permit.

FERC then asked Jordan Cove to “clarify whether they plan to move forward with the projects as authorized,” and to do so by Dec. 1. Jordan Cove’s response, filed on the day of the deadline, said the company has “decided not to move forward with the project” and asked FERC to cancel its federal permit.

The company’s request ended months of speculation that the project could be resurrected and that the company could take the land of people living along the pipeline route.

“The fact that they still had a federal certificate was a threat,” Deb Evans, a local landowner who had refused to sign an easement and the lead plaintiff in the D.C. lawsuit. “In our minds, it was just a matter of time until they were going to drag us into court.”

After fighting the project for 15 years, Evans said Wednesday’s news was overwhelming.

“We’re ecstatic,” Evans said. It’s a combination of being exhausted and relieved thar the threat of eminent domain isn’t hanging over our heads anymore.”

The dilemma faced by landowners along the pipeline route inspired U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley to introduce laws that would prevent companies from using eminent domain to seize private land where they want to build export pipelines.

Wyden had already asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that Jordan Cove was bullying elderly rural landowners into handing over easements to their properties.

At times, even the government itself seemed ambivalent about the project. FERC’s own approval noted it would spew an estimated 2 million tons of carbon each year, based on direct emissions alone — not including the emissions from getting the gas out of the ground or burning it overseas. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality found no evidence the project would be safe for Oregon’s waters or the whales, wetlands and eelgrass beds that serve as tidal nurseries for countless ocean species. And the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, the government agency tasked with managing fishing along the entire West Coast, warned the project would have “substantial impacts of an unprecedented scale” on the rivers and streams where salmon are born and return to reproduce.

Don Gentry, chairman of the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin tribes — also plaintiff along with the Klamath Tribe in the D.C. Circuit suit — said Wednesday that he was celebrating. Tribal members worried the project could disturb unmarked burial sites and worsen the climate crisis as Oregon’s new top polluter. The tribes also objected to supporting the fossil fuel industry.

In a 2018 New York Times opinion piece, Gentry and a local journalist warned Jordan Cove could become “the next Standing Rock.”

“We’re elated that Pembina has finally made the decision not to continue the project,” Gentry said. “I am very thankful for the organized efforts of those who came together to oppose it. I have renewed hope that when we come together collectively to do the right thing for our citizens and our environment, we can prevail.”

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Categories / Courts, Energy, Environment, Science

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