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Opponents of Oregon LNG Project Appeal to State Panel
As expected, opponents of the proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal at Coos Bay, OR, have appealed recent local permits for the facility along the state’s south-central coast to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals.
The appeal was made Dec. 26, three weeks after the Coos Bay Board of Commissioners approved an application from the Jordan Cove Energy Project.
Local officials and Jordan Cove Project Manager Bob Braddock told news media they were not surprised by the appeal. Braddock said his firm accelerated its local permitting requests to allow time for an expected appeal so the state panel can finish its review before an expected decision from FERC.
Jordan Cove expects that in mid-January it will get indications from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on the project’s environmental review schedule for 2008. Coos County Commissioners on Dec. 19 unanimously approved the conditions associated with the port permit for the tanker slip at Jordan Cove, a project being bankrolled by a private equity group and Alberta-based Fort Chicago Energy Partners LP (see Daily GPI, Dec. 17, 2007).
The appeal will require Coos County to supply the state land use board with its record for its land use decision by Jan. 16. Medford, OR, attorney David Lohman, from the Southern Oregon Pipeline Information Project Inc., filed the notice of appeal and has 21 days after the 16th to file arguments against Jordan Cove. The county is technically the respondent in the case — not the project backer.
Nevertheless, Jordan Cove is expected to carry out the legal defense for the application. Braddock told local news media Oregon’s history is that local land use permitting decisions, even for small projects, are frequently appealed. “It is part of the natural process of going through a land use application,” he said.
Noting that he thinks his project has “extremely strong findings” justifying the LNG facility and related pipeline, Braddock said he expects to finish the state appeals process before the FERC decision, which he expects late this year.
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