In a decision that completes the county process of granting a local land use permit, the Coos County Board of Commissioners voted on December 4, 2007 to unanimously approve the conditions associated with Jordan Cove Energy Project's (Jordan Cove) application for an Administrative Conditional Use (ACU) permit to construct an LNG receiving and storage facility on industrially zoned land located in the International Port of Coos Bay.
The final language of these conditions were developed by the Coos County Planning Commission staff and Jordan Cove in response to the instructions provided by the Commissioners when they unanimously voted to approve the Jordan Cove ACU application during a hearing held on November 7th. The county commission had requested additional conditions related to environmental protection, highway access improvements, facilities retirement and emergency response planning, all of which have been incorporated into the approved ACU permit.
"Oregon elected officials and government agencies in conjunction with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) have set important permitting and approval conditions for Jordan Cove. From the onset, we have embraced the local and state permitting requirements and processes while simultaneously addressing the federal requirements under FERC," said Bob Braddock, Jordan Cove's project manager.
"Jordan Cove has always taken the position that we have a responsibility to address and mitigate the impacts of our project so we consider the final conditions required by the county commissioners to be both reasonable and appropriate," said Braddock.
At a separate hearing, also on December 4th, the Coos County Board of Commissioners tentatively approved the International Port of Coos Bay's ACU application related to the projects' marine facilities. The Commissioners discussed various stipulations for the permit and instructed the Planning Commission staff to document the findings and conditions for final approval by the Board at a meeting scheduled for December 12, 2007.
Jordan Cove, along with the associated Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline, each filed their applications with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Sept 4, 2007 for approval to construct the JCEP LNG facility and an interstate natural gas transmission system, respectively. The FERC plans to issue a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), addressing both projects, in the first quarter of 2008. The DEIS will be subject to further review and public comment from the public and Oregon state and local agencies, with final FERC approval anticipated in the fourth quarter of 2008.
