NEWS
B Y K E L LY K E N O Y E R
TERMINAL
TABLED
PROPOSED LOCATION
FOR LNG TERMINAL
IN COOS BAY
LUBA decision slows push for
LNG pipeline
PHOTO: ALEX DERR
A
recent decision from the Oregon Land Use Board
of Appeals (LUBA) may create significant barriers
for a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export
terminal in Coos Bay. Activists say the decision is
just “one battle in a long war,” but they hope the
roadblocks it creates will prevent the proposed Jordan Cove
LNG export terminal from coming to fruition.
The Jordan Cove Project includes an export terminal and
the 233-mile, 36-inch-wide Pacific Connector Pipeline LNG
pipeline carrying fracked natural gas that would cross 400
streams and waterways, including the Klamath and Rogue
rivers, and go under the Coos Bay estuary.
“LUBA found in our favor in almost every point in our
appeal of Coos County’s approval of the land use permit,”
says Phillip Johnson, the executive director of Oregon
Shores Conservation Coalition. Oregon Shores led the peti-
tion to repeal Coos County’s approval, but numerous other
parties also intervened as petitioners, most notably the Con-
federated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw In-
dians.
LUBA agreed with Oregon Shores in whole or in part
on six out of seven arguments the group brought. “Most of
the arguments that were found to be adequate that Oregon
Shores raised had to do with impacts to the estuaries,” in-
cluding the toxic effects of dredging, says Courtney John-
son, a staff attorney for Crag Law Center, who represented
Oregon Shores in the appeal (no relation to Phillip Johnson).
“Oregon and Coos County land use laws contain pro-
tections for estuaries, wetlands and shore lands within Coos
Bay, and LUBA’s decision reinforced that those provisions
have significant meaning and can’t be brushed aside to ig-
nore adverse impacts to those resources,” she says.
LUBA sent a previous version of the Jordan Cove plan
back to the county for consideration. It had already been
denied by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last
year. But both Jordan Cove and Oregon Shores continued
with the appeals process, seeking a decision that would set a
precedent for future versions of the project.
When asked to comment, Jordan Cove LNG sent a press
release to Eugene Weekly quoting Betsy Spomer, president
of Jordan Cove: “For a large-scale development project such
as Jordan Cove, the requirement to remedy minor portions
of the LUBA permit is common and not unexpected.”
Oregon Shores’ Phillip Johnson says the decision is a
clear indicator that Jordan Cove and Coos County will face
big hurdles when pushing through a new land use applica-
tion to go with Jordan Cove’s new proposal.
There’s a precedent for land use obstacles preventing
LNG pipelines from being constructed in Oregon, according
to Crag’s Courtney Johnson.
“We’ve also seen two other similar projects in Oregon,
the Bradwood Landing LNG project and the Oregon LNG
project at Warrenton, and both failed under the local land
use review,” she says. “So this is certainly not the end of the
fight, but this decision could have real relevance and impact,
and it certainly gives those who are concerned about this
project a shot of life and hope that we’re going to continue
this fight.”
Phillip Johnson says the project has many opponents in
the area of the port and the pipeline. “It’ll cross people’s land
and interfere with what they want to do with their land,” he
says. Johnson points out that though the pipeline will bring
jobs to Coos Bay during construction, the jobs that remain
afterwards will be very specialized. “We’re pretty sure most
of those jobs will go to outsiders with technical abilities and
not to locals,” he says.
The project may also interfere with local jobs that already
exist, Phillip Johnson adds. “There’s also concern about the
local fishing industry because LNG tankers have a 500-yard
buffer zone around them where no ship can transit.”
This was one of the arguments that LUBA agreed with
in its decision to force a new consideration by the county.
“Oregon Shores argues that, because portions of the estu-
ary are less than 1,000 yards wide, each tanker passage will
completely halt navigation, fishing and commercial uses of
those portions of the estuary until the LNG tanker passes,”
the LUBA decision reads.
“That is this large area of the waterway into which es-
sentially no other vessels could enter,” Courtney Johnson
says. “This is especially important for the commercial and
recreational fisheries in Coos Bay.”
She adds, “It’s important for people to know that it’s
not just a couple of enviro groups that are opposed to this,”
pointing to numerous opposition groups, including the local
airport, landowners, fisheries and the tribes. The tribes suc-
ceeded in their argument on the basis that the county failed
to adequately include them in the decision-making process,
despite a 2015 designation of Jordan Cove as a “significant”
archeological site.
SHELLY GALVIN
HAPPENING
PEOPLE
The daughter of a reinsurance company CFO, Shelly Galvin was raised in
Freeport and Wheaton, Illinois, until age nine, then spent her middle and
high school years in historic Basking Ridge, New Jersey. “I did a lot of
theater,” says Galvin, who aspired to be an actress but decided to study
political science and international relations at the University of Maryland
instead. “I fell in love with Washington, D.C., and seeing young people doing
that kind of work.” She also fell in love with Matt Schuth, a “Grateful Dead
type” who was moving to Eugene, so she transferred to the University of
Oregon in 1997. “I studied political science and also law and religion,” she
says. “When I finished school in 2000, I got a job at the Oregon Research
Institute, doing social research in schools all over Oregon.” She and Schuth
were married in 2003 and had a son, Maddox, in 2007. She worked online
for a company that was training small firms in Africa to write development
grants. When Maddox started kindergarten at Oak Hill School, his mom took
a job as fundraiser for the school. She was invited to take part in a
development project at the UN-mandated University for Peace (UPEACE) in
Costa Rica, where she also took a course called Positive Leadership. “It
changed my life,” says Galvin, who went on to earn an online diploma in
social innovation from UPEACE. She now works as director of corporate
responsibility for Eugene-based online IT training company CBT Nuggets,
where she oversaw its recent donation of $2 million to St. Vincent de Paul of
Lane County to build a shelter for homeless teen boys.
BY PAUL NEEVEL
eugeneweekly.com • December 7, 2017
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