On Friday, July 18,
Oregon Pipeline Company LLC filed a petition for review with the Oregon Court of
Appeals to review two recent rulings from the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals
(LUBA): a remand of the board of commissioners’ October 2013 decision rejecting
the company’s consolidated land-use application, and the dismissal of an appeal
filed by project opponent Columbia Riverkeeper against the board’s original
November 2010 ruling approving the application.
In a ruling released
June 27, LUBA remanded the application back to the county based on its finding
that Commissioner Peter Huhtala was not impartial when he voted with the
majority of the board to withdraw the original approval and later to deny Oregon
Pipeline’s consolidated land-use application to build 41 miles of natural gas
pipeline through the county. The remand means the board must reconsider the
application without Huhtala taking part in the decision – the September hearing
was set for this reconsideration.
LUBA’s ruling came in
response to an appeal filed by Oregon Pipeline, which claimed that Huhtala as
well as Commissioner Scott Lee and former commissioner Debra Birkby all
displayed evidence of bias against the project. LUBA found that there was not
sufficient evidence of bias regarding Lee and Birkby.
The proposed pipeline
would serve a liquefied natural gas import/export terminal planned for the
Skipanon Peninsula in Warrenton. The board of commissioners approved the
pipeline application in November 2010, but two months later the board, with
three new members including Huhtala, voted to withdraw the approval and
reconsider the application. After two and a half years of legal wrangling over
the commissioners’ jurisdiction, the board voted 5-0 in October 2013 to reject
Oregon Pipeline’s land-use application. Oregon Pipeline appealed that decision
to LUBA.
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