Before oil and coal project proposals started popping up in communities across the Pacific Northwest, plans to build Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) terminals were emerging along the coastline from Oregon to British Columbia. And now that nearly every proposed oil and coal terminal has been stopped in the region, LNG continues on. The battle over the Jordan Cove LNG Terminal near Coos Bay has been going on for over a decade. Twice it appeared to be dead, only to be resuscitated last year by the Trump Adminstration.
On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with Coos Bay activist Jody McCaffree and Jackson County consultant and researcher Shirley Weathers about the continuing struggle to stop this terminal and its affiliated Pacific Connector Pipeline, that would carry 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas per day from Klamath Falls to Coos Bay, using gas supplied primarily from Canada and the interior west. This new pipeline would cross 232 miles of public and private land, creating a 95-foot permanent clearcut and crossing 400 streams and rivers including the Klamath, Rogue, Umpqua, Coquille and Coos Rivers.
Jody McCaffree is the executive director of Citizens Against LNG is a diverse group of dedicated volunteers who oppose the Jordan Cove LNG project while supporting the development of clean, green, sustainable and plentiful renewable energy.
Shirley Weathers is a consultant and researcher living in rural Jackson County. She moved to Oregon in 2013 from oil and gas country in eastern Utah where she had first-hand experience working on landowner, community, and environmental impacts of the industry.
- KBOO