Palomar LNG Pipeline - Cancelled!

Pipeline cancelled, Clackamas and White River basins protected!

On March 23rd, 2011, the Palomar Pipeline Company withdrew its permit application at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. This marks a major victory for Bark and removes the most significant forest-wide threat facing Mt. Hood. Company officials claim they are re-tooling their project and may submit a new application as early as 2012. As Bark stated in the Oregonian article covering this incredible news, when and if they come back with a proposal to illegally go through the Mt. Hood National Forest and weaken protections for Wild and Scenic Rivers, Bark will be there to stop them again. As of August 2012, the Forest Service has removed the Palomar Pipeline from their list of proposed actions and all NEPA processing has been suspended.

Meanwhile, in July 2012, Bark and a group of allies challenging the West Wide Energy Corridors identified by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) came to a settlement agreement that includes the proposed Palomar Pipeline route as a ‘Corridor of Concern’ for future development of energy transmission through the western eleven states. We consider this to be the final nail in the Palomar coffin. Although the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) battles have been mostly fought out on the coast of Oregon we saw the issue come to roost in Mt. Hood National Forest in 2007 when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) initiated the NEPA process to allow Palomar Gas Transmission (PGT), a company who transports natural gas, to place a pipeline from the Columbia River where the LNG Terminals are proposed down through Molalla and across the national forest to meet up in Madras with existing pipeline. This proposal would include a clearcut corridor for the pipeline as well as new road construction for access to the pipeline. The corridor would cross Fish Creek and the Wild and Scenic Clackamas River. These are key watersheds that include already compromised older forests. The corridor would amount to an approx. 720-acre clearcut.