BARK Field Trip to Proposed Clackamas River Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) Pipe Line Crossing

http://www.columbiariverkeeper.org

As the world races to address the causes of global warming, Texas and New York based energy speculators are aiming to make Oregon the west coast's import site for massive new supplies of Liquefied Natural Gas.

The projects would increase Oregon's import of gas by over 500% and the gas imported would have the carbon impact of over 14 million cars. The Wall Street Journal has called LNG "the next fossil fuel," but how Oregon responds to the planned LNG terminals is our most serious test to date as to how we will respond to the global warming crisis.

While LNG, which has a greenhouse gas impact similar to coal, could undo Oregon's progress on renewable energy, LNG and their related pipelines projects also threaten Columbia River salmon, rural communities, and seriously increase the price of gas.

The newly proposed gas pipelines would involve the removal of over 1 million trees due to clear-cutting a pipeline right-of-way that would include a 40 mile long clear-cut across the Mt. Hood National Forest.


The Bradwood LNG facility would require 40 miles of pipe to pass through the Mt. Hood National Forest on the way to the larger pipe line passing from Canada to Mexico.

There are three ways in which LNG pipe lines will cross Mt. Hood National Forest's creeks and rivers. Some of the creeks and rivers will be crossed up to three times.

One is the "wet crossing," which is digging a trench in a river while it is flowing. Brenna says that this is how the Clackamas River will be crossed, because "there is no other way." Another method is the "dry crossing," where a waterway is damned or the water somehow diverted around while the trench is dug. And last, "the horizontal directional drill," where they drill underneath the river, "which sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't," possibly discharging loads of sediment into the public waterway.

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