The Oregon Court of Appeals has reversed the finding of a state appeals board that Clatsop County Commissioner Peter Huhtala was biased and unfit to vote on a land-use permit for the Oregon LNG pipeline.
The ruling sends the county commission's vote against the controversial pipeline back to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) for further consideration.
The pipeline is part of the Oregon LNG liquefied natural gas project proposed in Warrenton, and the county's approval is a key piece of the overall permitting requirements.
LUBA had ruled in June that Huhtala was biased against the Oregon LNG project and shouldn't have voted on the land-use permit. That ruling would have required the Clatsop County Commission to vote again on the pipeline – without Huhtala. But the project developer appealed.
The Oregon LNG liquefied natural gas project would receive natural gas by pipeline, cool it to a liquid and export it overseas in ships. It would also be capable of receiving LNG from ships and distributing natural gas by pipeline. Developer Leucadia National Corp. needs Clatsop County approval to build a 41-mile section of pipeline connected to the project.
The Clatsop County Commission initially voted to approve the pipeline, but then the members of the board changed. In 2011, the board voted to withdraw the county's earlier approval. Then, in 2013, the board voted to reject the pipeline.
The company appealed that vote to LUBA, and LUBA found one of the commissioners involved in the vote, Huhtala, was biased. Now that the Oregon Court of Appeals has overturned that decision, the appeal of the county commission's 2013 vote against the pipeline goes back to LUBA.
LUBA still hasn't ruled on many of the other arguments Oregon Pipeline Company made in its original appeal of the board's decision.
So, LUBA could still find that Clatsop County erred in rejecting the pipeline, or that Clatsop County was justified in rejecting the pipeline.
The county land-use permit for the pipeline is a key approval for Oregon LNG, but it's only one of many that are still in process. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will have to issue a site certificate, and it has yet to put out its review of the environmental impacts of the project.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality need to approve permits for the company to dredge and build a dock in the Columbia River, and the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development will have to agree that the project complies with state land-use rules for the coastal zone.
--Cassandra Profita
