Recent coverage from The Oregonian/oregonlive.com
First proposed in 1903, Portland's iconic Forest Park has come under threat before. Today, Portland General Electric (PGE) is proposing to cut five acres of mature trees to build new power lines through the park as part of its Harborton Project to serve Oregon's changing energy demands. Already, data centers consume 10% of Oregon's electricity and that could double in the next five years. Meanwhile, energy efficiency measures have mostly stabilized residential energy demand. So while we do need to make transmission line upgrades for the clean energy transition, we absolutely must not cut down these priceless trees:
"The upgrades require the removal of Douglas firs and bigleaf maple trees that are more than 150 years old and white oak trees estimated to be 170 to 500 years old so that they don’t interfere with the energized wires." -Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian/OregonLive
While PGE says this must happen to keep the lights on in North and Northwest Portland, we are not convinced. The proposed tree removals would help PGE unclog a transmission bottleneck for some of Oregon's largest corporate energy users, including Intel and data centers being built to power artificial intelligence in Hillsboro. All the while, the utility has been dramatically raising rates for residential ratepayers, causing significant financial hardship to everyday Oregonians. That means we pay for the infrastructure that the tech sector benefits from.
Forest Park by Kai McMurtry
Sierra Club Oregon is strongly opposed to this project as it will cause significant ecological and economic impacts to Portland, and to imperiled species like the Northern Red Legged Frog, while providing little to no public benefit. You cannot mitigate the removal of a tree that has been growing longer than any person alive today, and we must hold an extremely high standard when considering ecological damage to our precious few remaining old-growth trees.
While new energy infrastructure will be required to support the clean energy transition, this project appears more likely to serve the explosive energy demand from private tech companies. They can and should pay for an alternate transmission route that will not harm public health, Oregon ratepayers, and our environment. Portland must refuse PGE’s land use application for the Harborton Project through Forest Park and they need to hear from you today.