Tonight at 6:30 p.m., the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is having a meeting at Umpqua Community College to accept comments on the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for the Jordan Cove Liquefied Natural Gas terminal and the Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline.

Under the National Environmental Policy Act, FERC is required to issue an objective DEIS that tells whether the proposed project is needed, whether there are realistic alternatives, and what the project impacts would be on people and the natural environment. This meeting is to give citizens the chance to comment on the accuracy and completeness of the DEIS.

This DEIS is a 1,500-page, pre-cooked justification for approving the Jordan Cove/Pacific Connector project. Jordan Cove Energy Partners, a Canadian energy conglomerate, is proposing to send expensive natural gas from potentially unfriendly foreign countries through a 230-mile pipeline over the Cascade Mountains to the California border. After dismissing alternatives to this complicated scheme in two or three conclusory sentences each, the DEIS says the Jordan Cove/Pacific Connector project is just what we need.

Interestingly, that’s what FERC said about the competing proposed Bradwood Landing LNG project on the Columbia River. It’s what FERC likely will also say about the three current competing proposals to build pipelines from the Rockies into Oregon. That’s because FERC’s approach is to issue approvals regardless of the real needs and impacts and leave the actual decisions to the financial wizards of the marketplace.

The National Environmental Policy Act makes the on-the-ground impacts on Southern Oregon just as relevant as the balance sheets of international energy companies. Commenting on the DEIS is Douglas County residents’ chance to make FERC and Jordan Cove/Pacific Connector own up to the real consequences of this needlessly destructive project. If we point out the weaknesses in the DEIS, and FERC does not meaningfully address our comments, a federal court will force the agency to.

While some of the failings of this DEIS require biological or geological expertise to understand, it has lots of obvious major shortcomings that any citizen can see.

• Detailed maps are missing for some areas, so landowners cannot be sure of the extent to which their property will be condemned or otherwise impacted.

• The recent identification of huge new domestic and Canadian natural gas resources (boosting North American supplies to well over 100 years’ worth) is not discussed.

• The DEIS cites a few favorable facts in Oregon Department of Energy’s report on whether Oregon needs LNG, but ignores its unfavorable conclusion.

• The proposed domestic natural gas pipelines from the Rockies are dismissed. These alternatives are not given full analysis.

• Possible tsunami impacts on LNG ships and storage tanks are not required to be submitted until prior to construction, long after the comment period ends.

• How mercury contamination will be avoided on the East Fork of Cow Creek crossing will not be identified until the end of the comment period. Thus, the public has very little time to review and comment.

• A full analysis of impacts on the North Bend airport hasn’t been completed. The DEIS suggests it be done prior to the end of the comment period. Thus, the public has very little time to review and comment.

• The substitution of wind, geothermal, solar, and biomass sources of energy for relatively dirty imported liquefied natural gas is given short shrift despite Oregon’s strong policy commitment to renewables.

• The DEIS fails to mention the biggest issue of all: Why should Oregonians be forced to put thousands of our neighbors and our environment at risk, just to send more natural gas to California — especially since Californians have turned down every LNG project proposal for locating LNG terminals in their state, which is where the demand is.

Nearly 17,000 people live in the LNG hazard zone, and the pipeline would cross 244 streams in 16 watersheds and 386 private properties. Each of these people, waterways, and properties would face a higher level of risk than they now have. And for what? For the 39 permanent jobs at the Coos Bay terminal, or the five permanent jobs on the pipeline promised by the company to be filled by locals?

Today is our chance to tell FERC that this project is not needed; that FERC’s statements of the impacts and risks are ill-founded; and that we don’t want to be the ones to bear the real impacts and risks for the sake of profits for the large corporations proposing these projects.


Diane Phillips, a resident of Azalea, is director of Oregon Citizens Against the Pipeline, whose membership includes affected landowners and concerned citizens throughout Southern Oregon opposed to Jordan Cove LNG terminal and the Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline