Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About St. Johns review. (Saint Johns, Or.) 1904-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 9, 2015)
Addresses: reviewnewspaper@gmail.com or reviewnewspaper@comcast.net * PO Box 83068, Port. OR 97283 * Web: www.stjohnsreview.com * 503-283-5086 * St. Johns Review *#1 - Jan. 9, 2015 * Page 5 Pembina Project does not address conditions Continued from Page 1 responsibility as a good neighbor very seriously wherever we operate. Here are some of the ways we in- tend to be a good neighbor in Port- land: • We declined any form of public subsidy or tax abatement, even though our proposed site at the Port of Portland’s Terminal 6 is in an ex- isting enterprise zone. Our project will stand on its own financial feet. • We will consult with the St. Johns Neighborhood Association and other North Portland neighbor- hoods on ways we can demonstrate being a good neighbor. For ex- ample, we will push for construc- tion jobs to go to men and women who live in North Portland and will make North Portland our first source when we recruit people for permanent jobs at our facility. • We are negotiating a Letter of Understanding with the Columbia Pacific Building and Construction Trades Council as a way for Pembi- na to tap into Portland’s extensive pool of skilled workers and who share our company’s commitment to workplace safety. Both sides are working to sign the LOU by the end of 2014. • We will create and work with a community advisory committee to observe construction of our facili- ty, view incident training sessions when the facility is operational and offer advice on how we can contribute to community improve- ment. • During the next 18 or more months when we seek numerous permits for the terminal, we will use the community advisory com- mittee as a forum to update people on progress and listen to concerns and questions. • Our design plan for the facility will include shoreline restoration and mitigation, based on the advice of local conservation and environ- mental groups. • The Environmental Protection Agency and others list propane as a clean fuel. Portland school buses run on propane, which is cheaper, more fuel-efficient and less pollut- ing than alternate fuels. • Our facility will be built and op- erated to strict construction codes and safety standards. Our control room operators, including the men and women who will man controls for this facility, have the license to stop any operation if they question its integrity or safety. We don’t re- sume operations until the person on the controls is satisfied the problem has been rectified or concern ad- dressed. This is a Pembina operat- ing standard. • We lease all the railcars we use. We only lease US DOT 112J rail- cars, which meet top safety speci- fications. When a railcar reaches about six years of service, we re- place it with a new, latest safety standard railcar. • Our proposed Portland facility will be designed and built only to export propane. The facility will be a closed-loop system, with liquid propane transferred from railcar into holding tanks and then into large storage tanks before being loaded by elevated pipe to ships. There will be no on-site process- ing of propane. In fact, the propane shipped through our Portland facil- ity will never see the light of day. • The facility is in an area zoned for heavy industrial use, with access to an existing berth and rail and through the Port of Portland, which has an excellent safety record. The facility will use a long, thin piece of property that is now partially used to export and import cars. In Canada, Pembina operates ex- tensive facilities similar to the one we will build in Portland. The only difference is transferring propane by pipe to a ship. We have ex- perience in designing and safely operating these facilities. We are very proud of our historical safety record and our safety-first culture, which starts with dedicated em- ployees and contractors from con- struction to operations. We look forward to the day when our St. Johns neighbors can join us for a barbecue on our site to see what we do and how we do it. Of course, we will use barbecues fu- eled by propane. Photos (courtesy Pembina) shows the location planned for the Project. The large forested area is the West End of Hayden Island. By Barbara Quinn Barbara Quinn has lived in the St. Johns neighborhood for 28 years. Her community volunteerism efforts include: Organizer of the first annual walk-to-school day at James John, ad- visor for the St. Johns Plan, past chair for Friends of Cathedral Park Neigh- borhood Association, advisory for the Superfund, and organizer and current Executive Director of Friends of Bal- timore Woods. By day she is employed as owner of Wild Oaks Native Plants. She also has a regular column in the Review called, “Between Our Rivers.” P embina Pipeline Corporation of Canada, the City, and Port of Portland officials have formed an agreement for an immense propane terminal in St. Johns on the banks of the Columbia River. Pembina owns and operates pipe- lines that transport conventional and synthetic crude oil, natural gas liquids, and byproducts such as propane produced in western Can- ada tar sands by *fracking. Buoyed by the possibility of huge profits, the company may not have fully assessed the appropriateness or safety of the proposed site. The City and Port, heavily focusing on tax revenues the deal could gener- ate, may have also failed to assess the site for storage of up to one million gallons of the volatile fuel in eight separate tanks and its pip- ing onto ships bound for Asia. In fact, it is not clear whether the issue of the flood and earthquake hazard zones present on the site have come up in months of talks between the company and local of- ficials (http://mov.oregonexplorer. info/hazards/HazardsReporter/). According to chief scientist Ian Madin with the Oregon De- partment of Geology and Mineral Industries, Rivergate lies on san- dy soil saturated with water, as does much of the Columbia Riv- er floodplain. He said if an earth- quake of 6.0 or stronger struck the vicinity, it could cause catastroph- ic ground movement and liquefac- tion at Rivergate. Pembina has not detailed any seismic protections in the plan and a spokesman declined to answer questions about earth- quake preparedness or any other concerns opponents raised. (Mike Francis, 9-2-14; Kelly House, 12- 26-14, Oregonian). Yumei Wang of the Oregon De- partment of Geology and Neigh- borhood Emergency Team volun- teers have long warned of dangers from existing tanks of volatile fuels on the Willamette riverbank below Forest Park that would be unsafe in a major earthquake as is expected within 50 years. “The river could be ablaze literally if all of that petroleum is going into the water,” said Tom Fahey, of Siltronic Corp. (Mike Zacchino, Oregonian, 9-21-13). For politi- cal reasons, largely related to cost, many of the large powerful com- panies that own the tanks are not being required to retrofit them. It begs one to ask, “Do we need to be exposed to more risk by placing new unsafe tanks of fuel in inap- propriate locations?” While enormous profits are to be gained from the operation, mostly going out of the country, an agree- ment without thought given to the conditions on the site could leave residents to deal with problems caused by one million gallons of explosive fuel in an unsafe situa- tion. Cleaner Fuel? Though often cited as a “clean- er” fuel, propane is one of many hydrocarbons that are produced through the processing of natural gas and the refining of crude oil, both of which are found and ex- tracted from underground reser- voirs through fracking. The pro- posal outlines the development of a 37,000-barrel-per-day export fa- cility at a cost of about $500-mil- lion that would require a full unit train of propane per day, an opera- tion not without risk itself. 37,000 barrels of propane a day is the equivalent of 9,883 tons of CO2, or the same as putting 867,138 Project steps. (Photos courtesy Pembina) cars on the road each and every day (Hart Noecker www.blueore- gon.com). In our growing climate crisis, is it acceptable for Portland leaders to be throwing their sup- port behind such damaging fossil fuel infrastructure? Opens the Door to Other Fuels? Pipelines can be shared. Some pipelines are “dedicated” pro- pane systems, in which propane is the only product moved in the line. Others are “batch” systems, in which more than one product is moved, in series, through the pipeline. Since Pembina deals in the transport of other fuels such as crude oil, it is appropriate to ask if they will eventually begin mov- ing and storing other fuel products along with propane at the site. Though the Port of Portland has said it will not transport crude oil “at this time,” more transparency with the community is needed. Treatment Onsite? Propane terminals use a vari- ety of methods for treating and conditioning the propane they re- ceive and store, prior to delivery to distributors and end-users. The methods employed are dependent on the condition of the propane at that location and on facility capa- bilities. The methods of treating propane at the proposed site have not been specified. What are they? Will there be other chemicals used to treat the propane before ship- ment? More transparency is re- quired. Environmental Zoning Besides the problem with un- stable siting of the terminal, only after months of discussions cul- minating in an agreement did offi- cials from the Port of Portland and City realize the zoning at the site does not allow a hazardous mate- rials pipeline. The environmental overlay zone was put in place in 1989 to protect sensitive wildlife, prevent erosion and protect views of the Columbia River. Unde- terred, Mayor Hale’s office has an- nounced it is working on a quick, “fairly minor change” to code to accommodate the Canadian com- pany, making the plan seem all but a done deal. Such a change could affect all environmental zones and open the door to pipelines and storage of volatile products on oth- er environmental sites. Alternate tweaking of code suggested by the City could also open a Pandora’s box of problems. Public Input Changing the code to accom- modate the project allows public feedback and requires approval from the Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission and the Portland City Council. Mayor Hales has called the project “great news” for the city but it’s not great news for north Portlanders if it is not safe, and so little thought has been given to its carbon footprint and other important issues. There will be a hearing about Pembina’s proposal before the Planning and Sustainability Com- mission on Tuesday, January 13, at 1900 SW 4th Ave., Room 2500A, from 12:30pm to 4:30pm. All are encouraged to attend to testify or learn more. * Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of extracting natural gas from shale rock layers deep within the earth. Fracking makes it possible to produce natural gas extraction in shale plays that were once unreach- able with conventional technologies.