The Jordan Cove Pipeline faces widespread opposition.
They didn't give people a reason to support the Pipeline, and they ran smack into NIMBY.
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| No LNG |
Now they are playing catch up.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission took testimony on the pipeline in Medford. Citizens spoke their opinions to court reporters. No cheering, no chants, no drama. The purpose was to gather and record public input.
The opposition has been long established, with an opposition so broad-based and motivated that it includes both environmentalist Democrats and pro-business Republicans.
This issue is a new pipeline that crosses rural, mostly forested Jackson County, well away from population centers. It would transport natural gas to a terminal at the Port of Coos Bay, where it would be liquified and exported. Natural gas pipelines are nothing new to southern Oregon, which is currently well serviced by natural gas. The current pipelines draw no opposition. Twelve inch pipelines were recently added and extended up arterial streets right in front of houses to service new areas, and the only complaint was the temporary traffic disruption for the installation.
Those pipelines serviced us. The opposition is to having a pipeline whose purpose is primarily to serve other people.
This issue is a new pipeline that crosses rural, mostly forested Jackson County, well away from population centers. It would transport natural gas to a terminal at the Port of Coos Bay, where it would be liquified and exported. Natural gas pipelines are nothing new to southern Oregon, which is currently well serviced by natural gas. The current pipelines draw no opposition. Twelve inch pipelines were recently added and extended up arterial streets right in front of houses to service new areas, and the only complaint was the temporary traffic disruption for the installation.
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| Pembina: Jackson County Fact Sheet |
Those pipelines serviced us. The opposition is to having a pipeline whose purpose is primarily to serve other people.
The pipeline operators could have seen this coming. There are always a natural and predictable set of opponents to infrastructure projects: affected adjacent landowners, people opposed to fossil fuels in general, people opposed to fracking in particular, and people generally worried about the changes or hazards of any major infrastructure project, be it a rail line, a freeway, a dam, a power line. There will always be hazards and complications to contemplate: terrorists, earthquakes, tsunamis.
There will always be some NIMBY.
There will always be some NIMBY.
NIMBY is the shorthand for Not In My Back Yard, the widespread American behavior in which a person wants to preserve a status quo against a change to their immediate neighborhood. An example would be a person who opposes new iterations of whatever they themselves did, like the owner of a home in a new subdivision who argues to the City Council that remaining vacant lots stay vacant because wildlife desperately need the open space.
Pembina took over the pipeline project in 2017, and has been scrambling to play catch up, spreading millions of dollars on media advertising and political campaigns. They are digging themselves out of the hole of having failed to give people in southern Oregon any reason to support the pipeline. They didn't advance an offense. Meanwhile the defense did what they do: oppose.
Affected landowners complained and still complain. I met Bill Gow, a rancher landowner in southern Douglas County at an April fundraising event for US Senator Jeff Merkley, who has announced opposition to the pipeline. Gow said he was offered a negligible money by the company. He is bitter and motivated.
Meanwhile, the environmental community got engaged: The Rogue River is endangered! It uses fracked natural gas! Fracking causes methane, a greenhouse gas! Solar is better! The jobs will come and go!
Bottom line: there was all risk, cost, inconvenience, and hazard, and nothing good to balance it.
Now Pembina is playing catch up.
They say they settling generously with the landowners, and some 75% of them by number and 82% by miles have found agreement, per the Pembina fact sheet.
They say they will be the single largest taxpayer in the counties the pipeline goes through, and vastly the biggest in Coos County, where the main terminal facility will be housed. The pipeline will be invisible and impose no costs on the through counties, but will pay taxes: the ideal net-positive taxpayer. All gain, no burden.
They say there will be thousands of direct and spinoff jobs.
They say natural gas is a net positive for the environment, certainly cleaner than the fuels it replaces, especially coal.
Pembina is making its case after candidates and office holders have taken a public position in opposition. Republicans say they oppose the use of eminent domain, when they hear from landowners like Gow. (Moving energy from where it is produced to where it is needed has been determined to be a "public use" under the 5th Amendment which reads: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.") It is legal, but controversial.
Democratic environmentalists say the pipeline is hazardous and this infrastructure further entrenches a climate-killing fossil fuel energy source, and it isn't environmentally clean since natural gas production releases methane. Besides, what about earthquakes? What about tsunamis? What if the pipeline leaks?
It is hard for an officeholder to do a full reversal. It looks bad, and it infuriates prior supporters. The officeholder may get and absorb new information, but the engaged, motivated, activist public has not. People get locked in.
The Medford public input event was low drama. There were visible pipeline supporters: people from the building trades unions in green tee shirts. There were pipeline opponents, mostly dressed in red.
Pembina took over the pipeline project in 2017, and has been scrambling to play catch up, spreading millions of dollars on media advertising and political campaigns. They are digging themselves out of the hole of having failed to give people in southern Oregon any reason to support the pipeline. They didn't advance an offense. Meanwhile the defense did what they do: oppose.
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| Landowner Bill Gow: "They lowball me." |
Meanwhile, the environmental community got engaged: The Rogue River is endangered! It uses fracked natural gas! Fracking causes methane, a greenhouse gas! Solar is better! The jobs will come and go!
Bottom line: there was all risk, cost, inconvenience, and hazard, and nothing good to balance it.
Now Pembina is playing catch up.
They say they settling generously with the landowners, and some 75% of them by number and 82% by miles have found agreement, per the Pembina fact sheet.
They say they will be the single largest taxpayer in the counties the pipeline goes through, and vastly the biggest in Coos County, where the main terminal facility will be housed. The pipeline will be invisible and impose no costs on the through counties, but will pay taxes: the ideal net-positive taxpayer. All gain, no burden.
They say there will be thousands of direct and spinoff jobs.
They say natural gas is a net positive for the environment, certainly cleaner than the fuels it replaces, especially coal.
Pembina is making its case after candidates and office holders have taken a public position in opposition. Republicans say they oppose the use of eminent domain, when they hear from landowners like Gow. (Moving energy from where it is produced to where it is needed has been determined to be a "public use" under the 5th Amendment which reads: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.") It is legal, but controversial.
Democratic environmentalists say the pipeline is hazardous and this infrastructure further entrenches a climate-killing fossil fuel energy source, and it isn't environmentally clean since natural gas production releases methane. Besides, what about earthquakes? What about tsunamis? What if the pipeline leaks?
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| Informational |
There were people there from the BLM and Forest Service--managers of most of the land through which the proposed pipeline crosses, standing in front of maps.
The federal agency people answered questions I posed.
Are there check valves on the pipeline, so that if there is a break for some reason that the pipe can be closed off? Yes, 18 of them, about one every eleven miles, and they can be operated remotely.
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| Building trade union support |
Does the BLM or Forest Service have a position on whether the pipelines are a hazard or whether they support them? The answer was no surprise: We get direction from the White House that they support energy development.
A pipe fitter in a green tee shirt told me how the pipe was constructed: 36 inches in diameter, half inch thick steel pipe, with the joints welded all around then x-rayed. Specialist welders do that work, he said.
A pipe fitter in a green tee shirt told me how the pipe was constructed: 36 inches in diameter, half inch thick steel pipe, with the joints welded all around then x-rayed. Specialist welders do that work, he said.
Will the pipeline get built?
I suspect not.
The pipeline company got positioned as a self-interested invader and polluter, a foreign company that condemns the land of good Americans, to transport American gas to send to China so they can make a fortune, and all we get is the danger, higher gas prices, and global warning.
No thanks!
The pipeline company got positioned as a self-interested invader and polluter, a foreign company that condemns the land of good Americans, to transport American gas to send to China so they can make a fortune, and all we get is the danger, higher gas prices, and global warning.
No thanks!
This opposition was unnecessary. They could have spent a fraction of the dollars they are spreading around now, paid the landowners very well, and made the case that they were public benefactors with giant tax payments and no different from the pipelines that are already servicing the area. They didn't.
It was public relations malpractice. The pipeline blew it.
[Note: the blogspot Comment section seems to be malfunctioning at this moment. People have told me they are unable to add comments, nor have I. This is a problem at the web service end. I welcome comments.]
It was public relations malpractice. The pipeline blew it.
[Note: the blogspot Comment section seems to be malfunctioning at this moment. People have told me they are unable to add comments, nor have I. This is a problem at the web service end. I welcome comments.]
3 comments:
Eminent Domain was intended to be used to acquire property for the use by government, and not for the use by a foreign company.
Both California and Washington State rejected this pipeline, as did various Canadian Provinces. Obliviously, they did it for good reasons. They must know something you don't know. Why should Oregon "whore" itself for a few dollars dragged through a trailer park, and sell-out it's values? Pembina has been spreading the cash, because they know that many southern Oregonians are poor. They're trying to buy you.
If the pipeline were to be installed, then it would look like the chest of an open heart surgery patient, with scars all over the place. The earth in southern Oregon would be permanently scarred where the pipeline exists.
Proponents claim that gas pipelines already exist under the Rogue River. Where are they??? Pipelines explode, and wouldn't it be a bitch if this Pembina pipeline exploded under the Rogue River, and polluted the drinking water for the Rogue Valley, and killed all animal life in the river? It would be a disaster.
Would Peter Sage want this pipeline running through his property where he lives? I doubt it. Then, why should anyone else accept it, particularly since the gas is going to Asia, and it will only increase the price for natural gas locally.
Say NO to the pipeline.
not an informative post.
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For most of recent history these projects have had little opposition. After all, we need the energy, right?
Not so fast.
For me the NIMBY references are beside the point. The tax benefits are too. Let's put a chemical plant at Crater Lake or a refinery at Haystack Rock if we need the money that badly.
Coos Bay is going to be forever changed with this, they better be sure it's worth it.
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