Joe Hengel's First Essay

The Oregon LNG Is an Environmental Disaster, Unsafe, and

Destroys Jobs in Clatsop County

Yard signs and bumper stickers are witnesses of our dedication to protect our homes. Recognizing the catastrophe it means, the residents of Clatsop County voted with a two-thirds majority against the Oregon LNG Terminal and Pipeline, called Oregon LNG in short, in 2008. The county commissioners who supported this project got voted out of office. The District Court and the Oregon Supreme Court confirmed our county’s jurisdiction and our legal right to refuse the proposed project, thus supporting our determined ‘No’. Despite all this opposition, in the manner of an irresponsible and greedy corporation, Oregon LNG keeps ignoring the will of us, the people. Insisting on going forward with their project that also defies every common sense, they have applied for approval with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They try to go over our heads now.

The terminal in Warrenton and the pipeline are a prime example of a devastating corporate project for environmental and recreational reasons. The underground pipeline carries liquefied natural gas at temperatures far below freezing point, crosses underneath the Columbia River, roads and creeks, and goes through Oregon’s unique coastal rainforest and our private farmland. Even without leaks, it disrupts migration paths of animals that are more sensitive to hidden threats than humans. Considering corporations’ abysmal environmental tracking record, we know that Oregon LNG will not clean up the devastation through our forests and farmland caused by building the pipeline. One of our favorite pastimes, recreational fishing, ends because fish stay away due to temperature changes in rivers and creeks. The coastal watershed is irretrievably altered with all dire consequences as mudslides, floods, and the danger to our drinking water.

The safety of everybody is another major concern. Energy corporations all over the earth have proven that it is not possible to build and run a pipeline that is completely without leaks and safe. Every single one has smaller or larger leaks, and accidents occur all the time. A large-scale fire accident at the shipping terminal can destroy the entire city of Warrenton and killing many people we know, including the children in a nearby school. To make matter worse, there are countless examples that corporations’ emergency action plans are notoriously insufficient or outright useless, a concern that also influenced the county commissioners’ refusal of the Oregon LNG. Surely to occur leaks heighten fire danger and contaminate our drinking water and soil. Horizontal drilling to cross underneath rivers and creeks is at its best a controversial procedure that also threatens our water and soil and causes watershed damage, road closures, and loss of wildlife habitat.

Economically, the Oregon LNG is disastrous. Featuring several parks around the end of the Lewis-and-Clark Trail, Clatsop County relies heavily on tourism. U.S. 101 is the only north-south artery along the west coast, which is already strained to its limit during the season and holiday weekends. A large-scale construction like the pipeline and the terminal means the breakdown of traffic, causing a negative economical impact. The huge industrial tanks in the Warrenton harbor are visible from Astoria, our historical town that is a popular stop for cruise ships. The tanks’ appearance seriously collides with our town’s quaint look that attracts tourists from all over the world, not only weekenders from Portland. Another livelihood, commercial fishing in the Columbia River, is seriously threatened. Our local farming products are contaminated by the pipeline’s inevitable slow leaks.

Not only for us, but also for our entire country, this project defies all common sense and exposes Oregon LNG’s corporate greed to its core. While affordable energy is badly needed here at home, exporting natural gas to Asia is a slap in our faces.

The minority of proponents claims that the Oregon LNG would create jobs here but they only fall for the scheme of a corporation trying to exploit small communities in need. All local authorities want to believe this promise but corporations never reveal the entire picture. There are jobs during construction, but none or only a few temporary ones for us because Oregon LNG brings in their own specialists where needed and cheap labor from elsewhere, from out-of-county, out-of-state, and possibly out-of-country. After the construction phase, the positions running the facility go to corporate people hired from within. Meanwhile, we are losing our jobs because of the Oregon LNG’s negative impact on tourism, fishing, and agriculture. We have to go on unemployment, which hurts the local economy even more, or are forced to move away. We, the local people can only lose one way or the other.

           We, the residents of Clatsop County, have been well aware of the disastrous consequences of the proposed Oregon LNG Terminal and Pipeline when we voted against this typical example of their corporate greed. Besides going against all common sense, this project is an unprecedented environmental and economical disaster for our county with a high potential for a large-scale accident that could wipe out our entire town of Warrenton. Let us keep up our determined “No” and show Oregon LNG that the will of the people cannot be defied.