Gabby Brown, gabby.brown@sierraclub.org
Coos Bay, OR -- Today, the Sierra Club and partner organizations filed a protest with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) over the renewed proposal for the Jordan Cove LNG export facility and associated Pacific Connector pipeline. The Jordan Cove terminal was twice rejected by FERC last year because its public interest value did not outweigh the project’s risks and negative effects, but has been revived yet again under the Trump administration.
The terminal at Coos Bay would require the largest port dredging project in Oregon’s history, threatening local marine ecosystems and the fishing communities that depend on them. The 230-mile Pacific Connector pipeline that would serve the terminal would also threaten clean water resources, crossing through nearly 400 streams in the Klamath, Rogue, Umpqua, Coquille, and Coos watersheds.
“FERC was right to reject this dangerous proposal last year because it would only serve the interests of corporate polluters while our communities pay the price,” said Sierra Club Staff Attorney Nathan Matthews. “Expanding LNG exports with projects like Jordan Cove would drive an increase in fracking and the air and water pollution that comes with it. This project may be in the interest of fossil fuel executives, but it is certainly not in the interest of the American public.”
“This scheme comes with an enormous emotional and economic cost to Southern Oregon Landowners, who have been held hostage to the threat of eminent domain in many cases for more than a decade. We are tired of being terrorized by these speculative ventures that are not in the public interest,” said Stacey McLaughlin of Pipeline Awareness Southern Oregon, a grassroots organization of landowners and community members who oppose the projects.
“The Jordan Cove LNG project is the only export terminal FERC has ever rejected,” said Susan Jane Brown, staff attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center. “With FERC’s reputation as a rubber-stamp agency, this speaks volumes about how deeply flawed the Jordan Cove and Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline proposal truly is. Additionally, forcing Oregonians to assume risk to their clean water and air so a Calgary-based company can export fracked gas overseas is a terrible deal for America.”
“Our economy in Coos County will devastated by a ‘boom-bust’ if this project is approved, because of the addition of over 4,000 high-paid workers demanding services and then leaving suddenly, with fewer than 200 left behind,” said attorney Katy Eymann, president of Citizens Against LNG. “Furthermore, building a highly hazardous facility in an acknowledged ‘hazard zone’ is insane. The geologic record establishes that Coos Bay is overdue for a major subduction zone earthquake with attendant tsunamis.”
“We’re asking Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to stand up to Trump’s fossil fuel agenda and to put the health and safety of our communities and our climate over the special interests of large out-of-state corporations interested only in short-term profits,” said Hannah Sohl, executive director of Rogue Climate. “Our state should be focused on creating good-paying jobs in improving energy efficiency and the expanding clean energy industry, not on new fossil fuel projects that hurt us all.”
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3 million members and supporters. In addition to helping people from all backgrounds explore nature and our outdoor heritage, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.