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The city of Portland on Monday morning announced it had approved a key request from Zenith Energy in its effort maintain operations at its Northwest Portland oil terminal, just one week after members of the City Council expressed objections to the company’s operations.
Zenith needed the city’s approval for a land use compatibility statement, or LUCS, to have a chance at continuing its terminal operations. The biggest hurdle for Zenith is obtaining an air quality permit from the state’s Department of Environmental Quality; the city LUCS is just one requirement of DEQ’s air quality permit application.
The city made its determination despite a call from two members of the City Council—Angelita Morillo and Mitch Green—to delay the decision until after a two-pronged investigation is conducted into the company’s actions and into the city’s dealings with Zenith in prior years. (Environmental advocacy groups have made accusations of backroom deals between Zenith and prior city leadership.)
Last week, city staff made it clear they intended to grant the land use compatibility statement to Zenith because the company met all the requirements for it. As such, they argued, the decision should be an neutral, box-checking exercise.
In response to an email to Sunrise Movement PDX, a climate advocacy group that’s urged the city to deny Zenith’s LUCS request, Mayor Keith Wilson wrote on the morning of Feb. 3: “I fully support our city councilors in their call for a review of the Zenith franchise agreement. I will work with the city council to ensure that any investigation into this matter begins swiftly and is carried out with full public transparency.”
But Wilson added that the LUCS decision wasn’t up to him.
Wilson wrote that a LUCS determination is a “narrowly defined procedural step that determines whether certain activities can occur according to existing land use regulations. I am not in a position to impede this administrative determination.”
In March, the City Council is set to discuss the future of the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub, a 6-mile stretch in Northwest Portland along the Willamette River where most of the state’s fuel supply is stored. Zenith’s oil terminal is located within the CEI Hub.