Oregon’s Court of Appeals Wednesday dismissed a challenge by opponents of NorthernStar Natural Gas Corp.’s Bradwood Landing liquefied natural gas (LNG) project along the Columbia River. Opponents recently appealed the state Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) decision that basically supported the projects.

The Clatsop County Board of Commissioners had twice approved Bradwood’s land-use variances for its site on a 4-1 vote, but project opponents later challenged the county’s decisions after LUBA rejected 21 of their 23 arguments (see Daily GPI, March 25, 2008).

“Yesterday’s dismissal [by the state appellate court] is a major setback to opponents’ publicly stated strategy to challenge the Bradwood project through legal and procedural delays,” said a NorthernStar spokesperson.

Bradwood said court documents indicated that the project’s opponents “failed to provide proof of mailing” as required by Oregon law. On the court’s own motion the judicial review was dismissed as “untimely filed.” According to Oregon case law, there is no way to cure the problem if the appeal is not filed in a timely way, effectively ending any further appeal of the issues already determined by LUBA, according to Bradwood officials.

On Jan. 7 LUBA approved the county land-use action on 21 points, rejecting the opponents arguments. On two of their arguments it remanded the case to Clatsop County to fix. LUBA also upheld the county’s variance decision allowing road improvement for the plant site.

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