Jordan Cove in the Age of Covid-19
By Dylan Plummer, Breach Co-Founder
Communities across Oregon have been fighting the proposed Jordan Cove fracked gas pipeline and export terminal for over fifteen years now. First proposed in 2004, this 232 mile pipeline and export terminal has drawn opposition from a broad cross-section of Oregonians, including tribes, impacted landowners, and climate activists.
Spanning from Malin in Southern Oregon east of the Cascades to Coos Bay where the export terminal would be located, the Jordan Cove Energy Project would become the largest source of carbon emissions in the state and would impact over 400 waterways. Its construction would require the desecration of innumerable Klamath Tribal cultural sites, and would endanger rivers central to their cultural practices. Additionally, eminent domain would be used for the construction of the project, dispossessing hundreds of U.S. citizens of their private property in the name of this fossil fuel pipeline. For these reasons and many more, a coalition of Oregonians has formed to educate, organize, and litigate against the construction of the project.
The project is currently on its third iteration, after having been rejected by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) twice in previous years. Yet, this past March, as the world watched in horror as hundreds of thousands were hospitalized and died due to the COVID-19 crisis, FERC moved to approve Jordan Cove. While this shocking decision has created a path forward for the project, construction cannot begin until all of the necessary State permits are obtained. As of now, Jordan Cove is lacking three critical State permits, and Oregon Governor Kate Brown has vowed to fight to stop the project until it has met the State’s criteria for these approvals. Recently, the State of Oregon joined Tribes, impacted land owners and public interest groups in filing a legal challenge to the FERC decision, marking the strongest action that the state has taken in opposition to the project.
Nonetheless, impacted landowners along the pipeline’s route, many of whom are rural and low-income Oregonians, are still facing an immediate threat. FERC’s approval of the project has given Pembina, the Canadian corporation behind the proposal, the ability to file eminent domain lawsuits against landowners opposed to the project to force them to give up their land for the pipeline’s construction. These costly lawsuits are putting the already vulnerable population on the frontlines of this fight at even greater risk, and unnecessarily burdening them during the unprecedented COVID-19 global health crisis.
Support these landowners by making a contribution to their legal defense fund at: https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/support-the-pacific-connector-easement-action-team
Join the movement to stop Jordan Cove and the fossil fuel corporations trying to profit off of this pandemic. Call your representatives and ask them to sign onto this letter calling on an immediate moratorium on the approval and construction of liquid natural gas (LNG) infrastructure like the Jordan Cove Energy Project here: https://nolngexports.good.do/stopjordancove/nonessentialwork/