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Jordan Cove developers challenge route shift that FERC staff backed

https://www.chemnet.com   Dec 10,2019 S&P Global Platts
Developers of the Jordan Cove LNG project and Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline are pushing back against a pipeline route alternative Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff backed in a recent environmental report.

The proposed route change would increase the number of private lands crossed, potentially adding to land acquisition needed for the project, which has faced a series of permitting challenges at the federal, state, and local level.

The Jordan Cove project entails an LNG terminal in Coos County, Oregon, with design capacity of about 7.5 million mt/year in its first phase. Proposed alongside it is the 229-mile, 1.2 Bcf/d Pacific Connector natural gas pipeline (CP17-494, 495).

The final environmental impact statement that FERC released November 15 found most of the impact would not be significant or would be reduced to less-than-significant levels. It did, however, flag adverse effects on 18 federally listed or proposed threatened and endangered species, along with impact to housing in Coos Bay, noise impact, visual impact, and impact on airport operations.

BLUE RIDGE VARIATION
Jordan Cove is now battling a recommendation in the EIS in favor of the 15.2-mile Blue Ridge Variation route alternative. Despite other tradeoffs, the EIS said this alternative would reduce long-term impact on late-stage old growth forest, with implications for habitat of the marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl. The variation would offer "significant environmental advantage," the EIS concluded.

"The proposed right-of-way would cross approximately 95 fewer acres of [late successional reserves] and remove 16.4 fewer acres of [northern spotted owl] nesting-roosting habitat and remove 10.4 fewer acres of overlapping [marbled murrelet] nesting habitat, FERC said. Instead, the route shift would more than double the number of private parcels, from 21 to 47, and miles of private lands crossed, from 6.5 to 13.8, compared with the stretch it would replace, the EIS said.

FERC acknowledged tradeoffs, including impact to aquatic resources because of added water crossings, but it suggested those were more likely to be temporary and mitigated.

The developers, in a December 6 letter, called FERC's conclusion faulty, arguing that 'no compelling scientific reason exists" to find that the route variation offers significant environmental advantages.

FERC failed to credit Pacific Connector's analysis of comparative impacts, and the FEIS is "factually wrong" when it claims developers have not proposed mitigation of long-term impacts and that there are "very minimal options for and avoidance of and minimization measures to address these upland resources," the companies said.

'ROBUST' MITIGATION
The applicants submitted "a robust comprehensive mitigation plan," promising to acquire and preserve private forest lands, and to take steps to enhance thousands of acres of Bureau of Land Management and national forest lands, they contended. "The area of mitigation measures would far exceed the area of impacts and would provide a net benefit" to the murrelet and spotted owl, they wrote.

In their view, FERC failed to consider exceptions for construction of linear projects, such as pipelines in the BLM's 2016 Southwest Oregon Resource Management Plan, and failed to analyze population trends for the species.

It is unclear what impact the suggested route change would have on overall project timing because it takes so much longer to build an LNG terminal than it does a pipeline, said Gary Kruse of LawIQ.

Elsewhere in the EIS, the developers found fault with FERC's reliance on a state historic preservation office finding that a 25-square mile area is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. They argued the finding "lacks any support in the administrative record, and is clearly erroneous."
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