The North Coast times-eagle., August 01, 2005, Page 4, Image 4

PAGE 4
LNG IS ECO-TERRORISM
L IA M D U N N E
FROM PAGE 2
I don’t have anything to say about LNG that will be any
different than what has already been said by everyone. Based on
my limited knowledge and awareness, I am against the proposed
LNG facilities anywhere along the Columbia River.
Apart from the official public relations information put
out by the proponents of these facilities, I would like to hear from
other people who know as little about it as I do who are for the
idea, and I would like to know why they feel that way, vis-à-vis
economic advantages to the area, increased tax base, employ­
ment, etc.
The reasons I am against LNG are the obvious ones
that have already been heard. Visually these facilities would look
ghastly in our relatively pristine landscape. Environmentally this
is a potential disaster that might be irreversible.
I’m not wholly convinced about the potential terrorist
threat, as dramatic as it may seem, although it is also a possible
irreversible catastrophe. And I feel the safety precautions that
might be taken in regards to the threat of terrorism will have a
negative effect on the natural homegrown commerce we have
developed on the river and in the local region.
Initially I felt betrayed and disgusted at the behind-closed
-doors way in which the lease was given to the LNG proponents,
and although there has been a modicum of contrition on the part
of our local officials toward their lack of faith in open public
discourse, how am I to feel secure that this kind of policy won’t
happen again? Who among our elected officials will give us that
kind of assurance?
It has been a surprise to me that some of our local
cultural and business boosters who appear to wear the mantle
of caring for our historical and natural pristine legacy are in favor
of the LNG project, and that some of these people are on the
LNG payroll as liaison, advisors and promoters. But maybe it is
no surprise to realize that the bottom-line motivation of much of
this is the lure of what some believe to be the almighty dollar
Pardon my naïveté but I see no Almighty in the dollar.
CARO LYN DUNN
Eudora Welty said, in The Eye o f the Story, that
“Out of love you can speak with straight fury.” And so we
discover that “straight fury” is, indeed, our natural response
to the multiple LNG siting applications that threaten our area.
The devious liquid natural gas assault by power
companies on community after community around the edges
of the United States, backed by an Administration in Washington,
DC. which is as good as a club of petroleum industry CEOs,
is no less than an outrage.
“Straight fury" is the proper response to those who
present us with lies about LNG plant “safety”. The worst-case
consequences of taking such a risk — which have been well
researched — is beyond our direst imaginings. We love and try
to protect our land, our clean air, our people, and our relative
safety. Many of us will move if one or more LNG plants is
allowed to build here. Many more will never come.
In straight fury, proportional to the depth of our love for
what we have carefully built and tended here, and for what we
appreciate and care for which is given to us by nature — in
straight fury we look an industry in the eye that should have
withered in the shadow of other energy sources decades ago,
and say “No".
ROBERT ADAMS
What should we do about LNG? The question is part
of a larger one — what should we do with our home landscape,
the one for which we are the appointed stewards?
Most of us find that the best thing about Warrenton and
Astoria is their location next to the River. From it we are allowed
views that strengthen us and make us more considerate We
can’t always explain how or why this happens, and we can't
quantify it, but we are grateful. Even our silence can express
that.
To be thankful makes us conservative, in the old, true
sense of that word. We want to be sure to protect a precious
gift. There is currently a proposal, for example, to place art
along the River Walk, an idea put forward by good people
with good intentions. But is it a good idea, given the absence
of any appropriately strict methods for soliciting and siting
first quality public art? (One thinks with embarrassment of
the wooden Indian head, and the cement park at 9th Street.)
It should be difficult to win the right to build at the
River’s edge. For now however, unfortunately, the main
requirement is just to bring money. Corporations wanting
to develop LNG terminals bring lots of money, but they are
bankrupt of more important qualifications — humility, civic
concern, a love for the natural geography, and, yes, rever­
ence for its creator.
K R IS D A E H L E R
Who locally will benefit from an LNG terminal? I won’t.
It will offer jobs — we are told 40 to 60 of them. And apparently
it will increase the tax base by 16% (or $6 million) per year. That
sounds really good: the Port Commissioners told me they believe
Calpine will provide these benefits voluntarily — and safely —
so their neighbors and friends will have prosperity and a strong
community to look forward to.
Astoria, wake up! How many remotely orchestrated
capitalist schemes have you fallen into? Where has the fur trade
gone? Where are the canneries and the mighty mills? What
these industries have in common is a strong dependence on
the extraction of what those unimaginative creeps call “natural
resources."
At one Port meeting Sue Skinner and some commission­
ers argued whether the natural gas will run out in 30 to 40 years
or the industry's notion of 80 to 100. Suppose it was 100 years
— who would have the nerve to call it sustainable?
This is our local part in a global fight. Calpine's job right
now is to convince us that their proposal (as well as three other
storia Real Estate
Thiuldng of moving to the coast?
Come in and check out the local market!
W w -« o rfa re a/esti
a t e .n e f
503-325-3304
0#
Peter and Janet Weidman
2935 Marine Drive, Suite C
Astoria, OR 97103
SIGNS OF DEMOCRACY
ROGER McKAY
LNG companies’) is an isolated topic whose implications are
limited to local economic growth. In fact, this project is part of
perhaps the most colossal undertaking in history. Since the
Industrial Revolution, an ethos that values the exploitation of
the Earth’s people, forests, animals and water for short-term
personal gain has taken root throughout global culture. Perhaps
the inherent selfishness of capitalism will be our redemption
once resource wars (read: Iraq) and tangible symptoms of
ecological collapse force us to reconsider the “benefits" of
industrial “progress.”
I would like to make it perfectly clear that I am pro-LNG
(liquefied natural gas) and have as much right to put up a sign in
front of my house as the anti-LNG people have in putting their
signs in front of their homes or businesses.
I am writing this protest because some of you seem
unable to comprehend this fact. My sign and some of the other
pro signs in my neighborhood were stolen a few nights ago. This
may come as a shock to some of you, but we are all entitled to
our First Amendment rights, not just one side. It is called demo­
cracy and we all get to play.
I hope whoever perpetrated this crime of theft and tres­
passing (he or she) reads this and is able to understand what a
petty act they have committed.
-D IA N E B E E S T O N
Diane Beeston is an Astoria artist.
S U S A N S K IN N E R
The Oregon Department of Energy recently decided that
the only “free market” (which, of course, is not free at all, but is
controlled by the transnational corporations and the governments
that do their bidding) can decide the need for liquefied natural
gas refineries on the Columbia River, and that other consider­
ations, aside from perhaps economic hardship which the LNG
industry might impose on an area, are irrelevant.
We, the “public," have been invited by the ODE to submit
comments about our concerns regarding the economic impact of
LNG on the Lower Columbia to help formulate “standards” that it
can apply to LNG projects.
Here is a “rule” for ODE’S consideration: The revenue
of all jobs and lives lost and displaced due to the presence and
activity of LNG tankers, security forces, and LNG refineries must
be factored into the “economic impact rule.” Such calculations
shall be made by an independent body, not allied with the petro­
chemical industry or the government agents it sponsors.
We are beginning to realize that converting the Lower
Columbia River into the West Coast hub for the LNG economy
will curtail our use of the river for livelihood and recreation, and
that our freedom will be taken away from us by transnational
corporations that have no interest in anything but making a fast
buck off our backs.
It’s dawning on us that LNG refineries will mean windfall
profits for electricity market manipulators wheeling and dealing
like in the last reported Enron fiasco, only on steroids.
U S. Representative David Wu said March 15 in Clats­
kanie that the only way LNG can pencil out for the Columbia
River is if it becomes an energy farm for California
Public relations managers for the various LNG corpora­
tions have been telling us lately that proper identification will be
required of fishermen and others who hope to use the river. It
looks like those who make surveillance reports, like RFID (radio
frequency identification device, or “micro-chip") manufacturers,
iris-scanners, weapons makers, and Jersey barriers, will be
raking in the big LNG bucks as well.
The occupation of the river by the LNG industry/security
state spells the end of a way of life here. The intrusion of the
crack cocaine of fossil fuels into our beautiful place is the begin­
ning of the endless petrochemical wars in Warrenton and Brad-
wood Many are talking of leaving if the war comes here
Perhaps others who are equally as talented and com­
mitted to community will move in to replace those who become
refugees: perhaps it doesn’t matter Perhaps, as ODE et al has
decided, it is best to “let the market decide ” But let’s not delude
ourselves into believing we're playing on a “level playing field "
And let's not pretend that the rape of the Columbia River is a
“value-added" experience.
‘The best Italian restaurant between San Francisco 8, Seattle.”
-JONATHAN NICHOLS, THE OREGONIAN
“The best Italian restaurant In Astoria, ever!”
-RICHARD FENCSAK. THE DAILY ASTORIAN
1149 COMMERCIAL, ASTORIA
(503) 325-9001