An invited community panel highlighted the deficiencies and false promises of the Houston-based oil company’s plans

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
January 21, 2025

Media Contacts:
Dineen Crowe, 350PDX; dineen@350pdx.org, 631-830-7478
Nick Caleb, Breach Collective; nick@breachcollective.org, 541-891-6761
Kate Murphy, Columbia Riverkeeper; kate@columbiariverkeeper.org; 541-399-5666
Damon Motz-Storey, Sierra Club Oregon; damon.motz-storey@sierraclub.org; 303-913-5634

Portland, Oregon - Today, Portland City Council held a work session and listening session on Zenith Energy’s operations and Land Use Compatibility Statement (LUCS) application. The city heard presentations from city staff, Zenith Energy, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, and an invited community panel. 40 members of the community gave testimony in a city listening session that immediately followed.

(video and presentation materials available here)

Dineen Crowe, Campaign Manager with 350PDX, said: 

“The evidence shows that Zenith Energy remains a fossil fuel company and despite clever branding, it plans to continue to expand its fossil fuel operations in Portland. We need city leaders to remain firm and reject any new applications from the company to continue its unfettered expansion of fossil fuels.”

Zenith Energy has received and shipped crude oil by rail since 2017 and continues to receive volatile fuels on trains that run through Portland and neighboring communities. Despite claims of transitioning off crude oil, the company is not required to cease handling fossil fuels and deals with biofuels that have safety, pollution, and carbon emission issues. On December 5, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued a $372,600 fine to Zenith Energy for unauthorized use of a leased dock with a requirement that Zenith obtain a new Land Use Compatibility Statement (LUCS) from the City of Portland before the agency will consider a new air permit. DEQ set a deadline of February 4, 2025 for Zenith to obtain new land use permissions. If Zenith cannot demonstrate local land use authorizations to DEQ, the company is not eligible to receive a state air quality permit renewal and cannot legally operate. Advocates called on City officials to consider Zenith’s operations as a whole with a deliberative, robust, and public process. 

Kate Murphy, Senior Community Organizer at Columbia Riverkeeper said:

“This bears repeating: Zenith is asking you to facilitate retroactively permitting years of illegal activities as well as expanding its operations and offering a loophole to allow more handling of fossil fuels. Historical and ongoing illegal activities are not a valid justification to approve a more expansive Land Use Compatibility Statement, particularly one that will bring greater threats of harm to our communities.”

Nick Caleb, Climate and Energy Attorney at Breach Collective said: 

“Zenith’s operations are inconsistent with the city’s comprehensive plan and Zenith’s repeated legal infractions violate clear obligations under its franchise agreement with the city. We think that if the city follows this logic forward, it will be difficult to justify Zenith’s continued operations as they currently exist.” 

Damon Motz-Storey, Director of the Sierra Club’s Oregon Chapter said:

“Oil trains derail, spill, and explode, just like one did near the Columbia Gorge town of Mosier in 2016 forcing students to evacuate a nearby school. Zenith Energy is not needed in Oregon and has an untrustworthy reputation. It is up to Portland leaders to do the right thing and insist upon clarity, consistency, and a livable climate future for all people, animals, and places.”

Samantha Hernandez, Healthy Climate Program Director at Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility said:

“Zenith’s current and future operations remain a public health and safety risk to Portland residents, especially those living and working within a half-mile of rail lines. Zenith will continue to transport volatile and flammable fuels including crude oil, jet fuel, renewable naphtha, and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). A potential train derailment, spill, or explosion can result in devastating immediate and long-term health impacts as we saw with the East Palestine derailment.”  

In 2021, the City of Portland denied Zenith’s LUCS application, explaining that “[w]e know that the activities carried out at this site, and the fossil fuel products being transported, have the potential to directly impact tribal territories, cultural resources, and tribal treaty rights.” The City, Columbia Riverkeeper, and Willamette Riverkeeper successfully defended the decision at the Land Use Board of Appeals and Oregon Court of Appeals. However, on October 3, 2022, just days before the Oregon Supreme Court issued another favorable decision, the City reversed course and announced that they were granting Zenith a LUCS and permission to move oil trains through Portland for at least five more years. On March 6, 2024, the Portland City Auditor found that the City’s coordination with Zenith went beyond the standard process and ruled that Zenith violated city lobbying rules.

In August 2023, Street Roots and Desmog published investigative accounts of an extensive behind-closed- doors negotiation that took place between City of Portland officials and Zenith Energy employees and lobbyists in the Summer and Fall of 2022. Through public records requests, journalists discovered that the City of Portland worked in secret to facilitate new permissions for Zenith, made clear efforts to hide their activities, refused to involve the public, and frustrated attempts at transparency from advocates and journalists. Environmental and community groups argue that these activities were unlawful and that city code mandates a quasi-judicial process with public notice and involvement. 

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