Thursday, March 8, 2017
The Pacific Connector Pipeline Round 3
and Other Causes for Climate Change Action
11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
OEA Building 2495 S Pacific Hwy
In order to cover everything and give time for Q and A, we need to start at 11:30 on the dot.
Please bring a bag lunch. Coffee and tea will be provided.
The March meeting will focus on selected climate change issues. The list is long, so we will confine ourselves to some updates and then zero in on the Pacific Connector Pipeline, which would feed the proposed Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal.
As a local League whose jurisdiction is slated to “host” a piece of the proposed natural gas pipeline and its potential damage to our water, land, air, climate, and public safety, the LWV of Rogue Valley determined to oppose the project years ago. Now that a new and bigger Canadian corporation has launched a third application, we and other opponents are gearing up again.
Two special guests at this meeting will share landowner stories. Deb Evans owns forest acreage in Klamath County and, along with her husband Ron, has made it her business to fight the project with knowledge. She will share some of her experience. Juliet Grable is a freelance writer who is gathering stories of landowners along the 229-mile, 36-inch pipeline. If you find yourself wondering if the country is terminally divided along party or political ideology lines, you’ll be heartened to remember that people with diverse politics can and do still find common ground and shared values The fields of battle are economic, political, and regulatory. We are excited to be working in concert with our neighboring Leagues in Klamath County to the east and Umpqua Valley to the north. We are also working with a growing number of individuals and organizations across the state.
Notable among pipeline opponents are landowners. Their refusal to say “yes” to granting 95-foot-wide clear-cut rights-of-way across their lands and share their property with a high-compression natural gas pipeline was a major reason for the March 2016 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) denial of the second project application. Their resistance guaranteed massive seizures of private property through eminent domain from Malin to Coos Bay Oregon. The November 2016 change in political priorities regarding climate change on one hand and fossil fuel development on the other, enabled a restart of the proposed pipeline —already 12 years in duration—for a 3rd attempt.
