Community members weigh Oil Tank Hub report predicting oil spill – Blogtown

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Oil tanks in CEI center. Aaron Lee

Members of the public focused on the county and city’s recent findings that an oil tanker farm in northwest Portland could cause one of the world’s largest oil spills during a public meeting Wednesday.

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A draft report of what will happen to the Center for Critical Energy Infrastructure (CEI) during the Cascadia Earthquake—a projected 9.0 earthquake that resulted from the Cascadia Offshore Subduction Zone—was released last week by the Multnomah County Office of Sustainability and the Portland Office of Emergency Management. The report compiled public data on the number of reservoirs in the center, the type of material they hold, and the amount of material, calculating that approximately 200 million gallons of oil and other toxic substances would seep into the ground and the Willamette River during a major earthquake.

The city and county released the report as a draft because they wanted to take advantage of the community’s knowledge to fill in any gaps in the report. More than 100 community members tuned in to the Zoom call on Wednesday night, listening to the report’s authors describe their findings and comment on outstanding questions they want the report to address.

Bob Saliner of Portland Audubon – a wildlife institute – noted that the report should contain a detailed index of the wildlife refuges along the Willamette and Columbia Rivers that would be affected by oil released from the reservoirs.

“I would also add that we are completely unprepared for an oil spill,” Saliner said, adding that they have the most resources in the city to deal with wildlife rehabilitation, but an oil spill of this magnitude would be beyond their capabilities.

Nancy Heiser, a Linton resident who lives near the Reservoir Center, called for more research into the current effects of the CEI on air quality in the area, while several other nearby residents asked for more details about the health effects they might face from the presence. Too close to a big oil spill.

The discussion left officials with at least four areas of the report that require further analysis. According to the John Wasiutynski County Sustainability Office’s guide, this includes: how the oil spill will affect the nearby Vigor shipyard and other businesses along the river, what will happen to people living in barges and other floating communities along the Columbia River, specifically sensitive wildlife lists Which may be damaged by an oil spill, and the degree to which groundwater is affected by spilled materials.

The research team will add these topics – and any others they identify when reviewing – to the final version of the report released this fall. The final report will also include estimates on the cost of cleaning up the oil spill, as well as input from tribal governments from countries along the Columbia River.

While the public meeting was scheduled to focus on reporting areas that are missing or need more detail, some participants took the time to voice their grievances with the city and county. Several members of the public expressed concern that the county and city were not doing enough to actually prevent the oil spill.

“This is a really interesting study that got great information, but it’s a little annoying because I’m not sure what the point here is,” Barbara Quinn said during the public comment section of the meeting. “Is the goal to find ways or ways to address the problem of the slow motion catastrophe that we know is going to happen? Once this disaster happens and once these tanks break out, or whatever they are going to do during a major earthquake, it is too late. There is no way we can even address this kind of the influence “.

Wasiutynski sympathized with these concerns, and her own.

“It’s a really scary scenario, so I think we should be able to do something about it,” Wasyutinsky said in an interview with Mercury. “If you have that money to clean up an oil spill, there has to be money to stop an oil spill that we know is going to happen.”

Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Miran – one of the local leaders leading the CEI report – reiterated during the meeting that identifying the full scope of risk through the report is the first step in taking preventive measures to reduce the risk of an oil spill. Once the second phase of the report detailing the cost of cleaning up the oil spill is complete, the county — and other government partners such as the city and state — can begin creating policy to order or incentivize prevention.

The current plan is to introduce legislation that would hold oil companies that store fuel at the CEI responsible for any clean-up costs associated with the anticipated oil spill. Since the cost of cleaning up such a major oil spill would be a huge blow to the industry, the county and city hope that oil companies will be more inclined to invest in retrofitting their old tanks that are more prone to fracture during an earthquake, thus reducing the overall oil spill risk.

When asked if the threat of financial burden would be enough to spur oil companies to upgrade their tanks, Miran said provincial leaders speculate it might be, but ultimately aren’t sure.

“Are we sure it will work? No,” Miran said. “We will actually be at the forefront [holding oil industries accountable for damages they cause]But it’s better than doing nothing.”

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County Commissioner Susila Jayapal, whose district includes the St. John’s neighborhood across the river from the CEI Center, also emphasized this uncertainty. Jayapal said putting in place a policy to reduce the risk of oil spills will require action not only from provincial and city leaders, but also state and federal representatives.

“We need to examine what can be done at every level of government, because the scope of this is so large that there is probably no single policy solution – it has to be a set of connected policy solutions,” Jayapal said.

The public can still provide written comments on the draft report through August 15. The final version of the report is expected to be published in October.

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