No Pacific Connector Pipeline or LNG Terminal!

Veresen Inc., a Canadian energy company, is teaming up with a U.S. company to export U.S. natural gas to Asia by proposing a 230-mile long pipeline (Pacific Connector Pipeline) through southern Oregon, ending at Coos Bay on the Oregon coast at the proposed Jordan Cove Export Terminal. There the natural gas would be liquefied (LNG) to condense it for transportation across the ocean.

This had originally been proposed as an import terminal, because, we were told, we needed to depend on Russia for our energy supplies. The federal agency in charge of this, the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission (FERC), agreed and in 2009 granted Veresen the power of Eminent Domain to build the pipeline and terminal.

In 2011 Veresen admitted they really wanted to export fracked methane to Asia. The technology of “fracking”, a controversial drilling method, had produced an abundance of natural gas. They say “improvement of hydraulic fracturing technology have led to… a 28 percent increase in U.S. total gas production from 2005”, more than enough to meet current domestic demand. Veresen claims that the only way to continue fracking is to allow exporting. Early in 2012 FERC withdrew the import certificate, and are now in the process of reviewing the proposal to export methane.

The Pacific Connector Pipeline is proposed to travel from Malin Oregon (near Klamath Falls), across two mountain ranges, six major rivers, and hundreds of salmon-bearing streams. 160 miles would be through private land, including hundreds of family farms that stand to loose property via the threat of eminent domain. (The power of eminent domain allows for tiny, unfair compensation.) 70 miles of the pipeline would travel through public forests and waterways that shelter federally protected endangered species. The 36", high-pressure, unodorized gas pipeline would be burried about 5' deep and require over a 100' wide clearcut through southern Oregon forests.

The Jordan Cove Terminal would turn the natural gas into LNG and load it on huge ocean tankers, using a new “South Dunes” 420 mw power-plant next to the terminal. The infrastructure is proposed to be built on the Oregon Dunes, on dredging spoils, across from an airport runway, in a tsunami inundation zone, at only 30’ above sea-level, in a earthquake subduction zone, close to the site of the New Carissa ship wreck, and near a highly populated city.

We strongly oppose this proposal because of the environmental and social damages from the LNG terminal and the pipeline. The methane would come from the Rocky Mountain basin, derived by the environmentally damaging method of fracking. Exporting would increase our domestic natural gas prices, raising them to compete with the more lucrative international marking. Methane is 20 times more polluting a greenhouse gas than carbon. Over 9% of drilled methane leaks into the atmosphere in the drilling and transportation process. This makes LNG as polluting as coal. Exporting LNG harms everyone except the energy companies making the big profits.
 
Currently the federal government is asking what issues to include in the draft Environmental Impact Statement, due out the spring of 2013.  For more information click here.
 

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