Fighting LNG in Washington County

Washington County has two major factors on its side when it comes to creating a new and greener future. One is our county's plentiful farmland - the perfect base for local, sustainable food production in our area. The other is our proximity to Oregon's burgeoning clean energy economy. By protecting and utilizing these two assets effectively, our local leaders can position Washington County to become a true leader in sustainability. And yet both are threatened by a project summed up in three words: Liquefied Natural Gas. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) represents the largest fossil fuel energy project proposed for the state of Oregon. I don't have space in this post to go into all the many reasons why LNG is a bad idea for our state, but you can find a good summary at http://oregonfirst.net/. What I want to do here is explain what LNG means for Washington County specifically, and how you can help stop the project in its tracks.

Oregon is already fast-becoming a leader in renewable energy, and this has meant the creation of new jobs in communities like Washington County. Considering the state-level commitment to investments in renewable energy and reductions in global warming pollutants, our area seems poised to continue drawing the solar and wind industries to set up shop here. But all that will change if large energy corporations are allowed to flood the market with imported LNG fuel. The minute a giant new fossil fuel project manages to take possession of the Oregon market, our state will become less attractive to renewable energy investors. Renewable energy has the potential to continue bringing hundreds of new jobs to Oregon, as facilities like SolarWorld have already done in Washington County. But to see these jobs materialize, we need to keep LNG out of the state.

Second, one of the proposed pipelines for LNG, the Palomar Pipeline, would cut straight through Washington County, devastating prime farmland in the Forest Grove area. Farmers like Anne and Rene Berblinger, owners of the Gales Meadow organic farm, could be put out of business, their land seized by private companies making use of "eminent domain" laws. At a time when we desperately need Washington County's farmland to produce local, organically grown foods for our community, sacrificing farms for fossil fuel infrastructure is not only counter-productive - it's nonsensical.

So what's to be done? This Valentine's Day, students from Pacific University took part in a "Lovers Against LNG" rally at the Portland headquarters of Northwest Natural - corporate backer of the Palomar Pipeline - organized by Cascadia Rising Tide. After taking public transportation into Portland, we set up across from the MAX line, and got lots of interested looks from folks getting off at the station. If you missed the rally, though, there's plenty of time to get involved. Next month will see such groups as the Columbia Riverkeeper and the Cascade Climate Network organize host a bicycle ride along the proposed route of the Palomar line, which will inform participants about the threat of LNG while attracting media attention to the issue. You'll have the chance to talk to local landowners whose livelihoods will be affected by the pipeline, and to visit some beautiful areas in Washington County who are organizing against LNG. I'll post details about the bike ride on this blog as soon as they're finalized. Stay tuned for more!