Don’t frack with me: How to stop the Jordan Cove/Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline
The Jordan Cove Methane Monster
Imagine that in 40 years’ time you are hiking the Eagle Creek trail with your favorite children and teens. It is 85 degrees in early March, and you remember a time when temperatures were much cooler. You think back before greenhouse emissions started to level off, to the fire of 2017. That was the summer of smoke and ash. That’s when Portlanders got a reminder that clean air, never to be taken for granted, can change as quickly as the wind changes direction. The water still falls in cascades in the Gorge, past lichen that grows nowhere else on the planet. Although there are signs of devastation on the trail, you also see abundant green signs of a forest recreating itself.
One of the young people asks you about that year of the fire, the hurricanes, and the floods, when it became so clear that climate disruption was escalating. She says, “People knew about the dangers of fracked gas and methane then, right? Did you know?” She pauses, “What did you do to stop it from coming to Oregon?” Read more
On February 23rd, some fellow Sierra Club members trekked out to Cousins’ Country Inn in The Dalles. The Energy Facility Siting Council (EFSC) was holding one of their regular meetings where they discuss and eventually vote on which sites are granted the right to produce energy. Thus, they can either approve or deny the Carty/Boardman gas plants. Although the Carty gas plants were not on the agenda, public comment (of any sort) was – and thus a few of us wanted to voice our concerns with the proposed PGE gas plants.
On the morning of July 13th, 40 people gathered outside City Hall to eat breakfast, have inspiring conversation, and attend City Council’s open testimony to support Mia Reback and Nick Caleb. Mia and Nick were testifying on the Fossil Fuel Code discussion draft, which will be the legally binding version of the Fossil Fuel Infrastructure ban resolution that was passed November last year. The Fossil Fuel Code falls well short of the original resolution, and is less a ban on fossil fuel infrastructure and more a few regulations tailored to fit the needs of the fossil fuel industries and their interest to grow. By testifying at City Council, Mia and Nick are drawing Council’s attention to the disparity between the resolution as passed and the 