April 22nd, 2008

Proposed Liquefied Natural Gas Pipe Line to Cross Clackamas River

The Rally featured a wide range of speakers who took the podium to criticize the attempt by the energy industry to situate unsustainable fossil fuel facilities in Oregon in order to profit from the large markets in California.

Link to Video on Google.com

In this 21 minute video the first speaker was Secretary of State, Bill Bradbury, followed by Brenna Bell, staff attorney for Columbia Riverkeeper, who spoke about the universal importance of water and enumerated the three ways in which these pipe lines will cross our creeks and rivers.

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.

She then listed the many rivers and creeks that a pipe line would have to traverse for just one of the three proposed facilities, the Bradwood facility which would require about 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. This list went on for an agonizing period of time, listing numerous creek and rivers, including the Clackamas River, some of them to be crossed up to three times.

I was impressed by the success of a young woman whose company had developed wind energy technology which can be utilized by single dwelling homes. This introduced the idea of decentralizing energy consumption, a theme which was raised time and time again throughout the Rally.

The idea that it could be possible for the people to generate some or all of their own energy needs must strike fear into the hearts of these State, National and Multinational corporations who are growing fat and seek to keep things as they are, at any cost.

Governor Kulongowski needs to hear the voice of the people. 503-378-4582. Our Senators and Representatives, state and federal also need to be educated about this issue.