Photo credit ©️Rick Rappaport 2021
Thanks to years of grassroots organizing and legal advocacy, the City of Portland Bureau of Developmental Services just denied a key certification needed by Zenith Energy’s oil-by-rail operations in NW Portland. Zenith needed the City to file a supportive Land Use Compatibility Statement (LUCS) in order to obtain the air pollution permits from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) that it needs to continue operating. On August 27th, the City of Portland denied the LUCS, lifting up the incompatibility of Zenith’s operations with the city’s Comprehensive Plan, including its adverse impacts on the environment and historically marginalized groups.
While Zenith has announced plans to appeal the city’s decision, this is a huge win for the people of Portland as well as all the thousands of people who live alongside the railroad tracks from the extraction sites in Montana, North Dakota, and Alberta, Canada to Portland. It is also a big deal for the climate; last year Zenith handled an astounding 234 million gallons of oil.
For more background, make sure you read “Can Portland, Oregon, Stand Up to the Oil Industry?” in the August 23rd, 2021 issue of Sierra, which provides an in-depth look at Zenith’s operations, the risks it presents to our communities, and the broader context of Portland’s climate commitments. The Sierra Club also signed onto a letter opposing the granting of the LUCS, sent to Portland’s Bureau of Development Services on June 21st, 2021.
The Sierra Club is grateful to the many volunteer activists, nonprofits, and community groups who came together to organize in resistance to Zenith and raise public awareness about the dangers it poses to people and the planet. As a result of their efforts Portland residents, community organizations, and elected officials spoke emphatically and in large numbers against approving the LUCS.
We are also grateful to the City of Portland for having the courage to uphold their many policy commitments to protect their citizens and to the many elected officials who spoke in opposition granting the LUCS.
We are encouraged by the affirmation that activism works! We can make a difference when we come together and fight for our communities and the planet. As long time Sierra Club Activist Don Steinke of Vancouver shared, “This is the 22nd giant fossil fuel project defeated on the waters of Oregon and Washington in the last decade. This is where fossil fuel companies come to die. The Thin Green Line Holds.”