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Our family lives in Yamhill county and farms a small parcel of ground. The LNG plants on the coast are just the ugly head of the snake; the tail affects a lot more of Oregon; up to 220 miles. There are two 36" LNG pipelines proposed to cross 23 miles of our county alone, and sometimes they are only a few feet apart. Each one will start with a clearcut of 120 to 200 feet, and a final easement of 40 to 50 feet. We will not be allowed to re-plant any crops with "deep" roots or stakes; no Filberts, grapes, cane berries, etc.  And we will loose EVERYTHING in the initial clearcut route.

In Yamhill county we will loose over one million dollars in year one, in just the 40-50 foot right-of-way that we cannot re-plant in this 23 miles! This will mean dozens of PERMANENTLY lost jobs! My one neighbor will loose almost half of his Hazelnut orchard, my other neighbor will have his vineyard decimated. My wife and I will loose a large part of our native forest that we have so carefully nurtured over many years. We can't plant one thirty acre field until we are released from the limbo of the proposed LNG pipeline routes.

The project managers for the three proposed LNG plants in Oregon have told us that there is no need for three new sources of gas. They have said that only one new pipeline would be needed to supply future needs for the entire West Coast. Well that pipeline (the 42" Ruby pipeline) is currently planned to start construction this Spring. It will bring gas from the Rockies to the West Coast.

If our state had control of these projects they would recognize what the Oregon DEQ and California Energy Commission have determined. There is no need to import LNG; this country has over a hundred years worth of its own Natural Gas. North America is awash in Natural Gas; over 40% of our current gas supplies are coming from non-standard sources, and the amount that we are pumping from shale gas fields continues to grow.

posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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