noLNG

BREAKING NEWS, LUBA DECISION

Rethink LNG, board tells Clatsop County

Tuesday, January 27, 2009 11:53 PM PST

By Tony Lystra

The Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals on Tuesday said Clatsop County officials must reconsider their decision to approve a liquefied natural gas terminal at Bradwood, Ore.

The order comes a little more than a year after Clatsop County commissioners created or altered dozens of policies to allow NorthernStar Natural Gas to unload liquefied natural gas from ships 38 miles from the mouth of the Columbia River. The gas would be distributed by a new pipeline crossing below the river and through Cowlitz County.

Terminal opponents, who worry it will harm the river and endanger the public, appealed the county’s decision to the appeals board, a three-member panel that considers land-use disputes.

The panel said Tuesday that the county should reconsider two findings — that the facility would not threaten fish and that it constitutes a “small or moderate” sized facility.

Brett VandenHeuvel, executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper, one of the parties that appealed the county’s decision, said that Tuesday’s ruling is “another nail in the coffin of NorthernStar.”

It “stops the project in its tracks” and will block NorthernStar from securing other permits until the company addresses the board’s concerns, he said.

NorthernStar spokesman Joe Desmond noted that the appeals board rejected 21 of the 23 arguments raised by terminal opponents and said that the company was “pretty satisfied with the outcome.”

The board’s remarks “provided some pretty clear direction of what the county needs to do to expand its findings in order to support its decision,” he said.

Clatsop County Commissioner Patricia Roberts said that she expects the county will revise details of its December 2007 decision, but the matter may not even come before the commissioners again.

“It’s really up to the attorneys,” she said. “We are adhering to the law. Period.”