Portland’s Local Climate Issues
Image Courtesy of Multnomah County Office of Sustainability
The Critical Energy Infrastructure (CEI) Hub threatens all Portland neighborhoods
The City must “regulate or prevent the storage, manufacture, sale, use and transportation of dangerous, explosive, radioactive or combustible materials or weapons…to prevent by all proper means risks of injury or damage therefrom.”
Section 2-105.45 of Portland’s City Charter
From sacred site to dumping ground
According to the Braided River Campaign, the city refuses to honor and protect fishing treaties with indigenous peoples and instead historically caters to the demands of industry, allowing industrial waste into the river.
Plateaued river cleanup progress
The Willamette River was included in the EPA’s list of national priorities in December 2000 and was designated as a superfund site. While cleanup plans and remedies began in 2017, there is still a long way to go, and progress has slowed.
Fossil fuel in the liquefaction zone
The companies in the CEI Hub store fossil fuels on unstable land converted from biodiverse wetlands to filler. Multnomah County’s seismic risk analysis indicated that 91% of the oil storage tanks do not meet updated seismic protection standards.
Failure to listen to community action
Documented by 350 PDX, City Council initially denied Zenith Energy’s land use permit in 2021 after action from 46 neighborhood associations. However, in October 2022, City Council approved the land use permit, allowing Zenith five additional years of transporting and storing crude oil.
Fewer trees for carbon capture
Our Pacific Northwest climate is uniquely biodiverse and climate resilient. Rather than cut down native trees in favor of housing developments, we need to focus on undoing the harm of our terraformed rivers and find ways that architecture can coexist with nature’s best carbon capture machines.
High-speed oil trains
Many Portland neighborhoods built along the railways that transport mile-long trains of highly pressurized oil are at risk of major explosions. While Zenith Energy promises to shift to “natural” fuels, those oil trains still present explosive risks. Find out if you are in the blast zone here.
After working inside organizations such as Extinction Rebellion PDX, 350 PDX, and Tank the Tanks, Andra stands with climate activists as they advocate for change. They have used their voices to ask City Council to make environmentally conscious decisions, but the council has failed them.
Andra’s plan for addressing issues surrounding the unsafe conditions of the CEI Hub include the following:
Ensuring that no corporate entity can have private access to City Council outside of public meetings
Enforcing seismic retrofit regulations and the decommissioning of unused storage facilities
Encouraging a procedure for safe dispersal and a decrease of reliance on fossil fuels by implementing more walkable neighborhood design
Educating and increasing our number of first responders on the dangers of the CEI Hub while collaborating with Portland NET