Court of Appeals agrees to hear case challenging safety review for LNG tankers

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has cleared the way for a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Coast Guard’s review of LNG tanker traffic on the Columbia River.  The court made the determination on Friday.

Federal law requires the Coast Guard to issue a letter of recommendation on the suitability of the Columbia River for LNG tanker traffic as it relates to safety and security.  In 2009, the Coast Guard determined that although not suitable at the time, the Columbia could be made suitable for LNG tanker traffic.

Lauren Goldberg, staff attorney for the environmental group Columbia Riverkeeper, said LNG tankers have the potential to adversely affect public safety and shipping traffic on the Columbia.

 “The concern here is how LNG tankers will impact people that are currently using the river, so LNG tankers, they’re not your average ship.  They’re enormous, and there are a number of major safety concerns – in terms of threats that are associated with these tankers.  They also have impacts that are just a practical reality of doing business in that they exclude other ships from being able to access the river well in the area where the tanker is located, so those are two of the exclusion zones.  Those are some of the public safety and impacts that need to be addressed by the Coast Guard before they get the green light for these tankers to start coming into the Columbia.” 

In response to the Coast Guard’s determination that the river could be made suitable for LNG tanker traffic, Columbia Riverkeeper, Columbia-Pacific Commonsense and Wahkiakum Friends of the River, filed a lawsuit challenging the Coast Guard’s decision to issue its recommendation. Goldberg explained the Coast Guard’s determination failed to consider the impacts on the public as required by federal law.  

 “The law requires that federal agencies like the Coast Guard  - before they make a decision, like giving the green light for LNG tankers to start using the Columbia River to disclose to the public the environmental and public safety impacts of those decisions, and the public has a chance to learn about those in advance, to provide input to those agencies that should inform their decisions.  In this case the Coast Guard didn’t follow that procedure. They went ahead and gave the thumbs up for LNG traffic before that important public discourse about how LNG traffic and LNG tankers will impact life on the Columbia.”

On Friday, the Coast Guard and Oregon LNG lost their bid to have the challenge dismissed.  The decision comes on the heels of last month’s decision by the Oregon Supreme Court recognizing Clatsop County’s authority in issuing permits for LNG pipeline proposals inside the County.