When Mayor Ted Wheeler reassigned the Bureau of Development Services (BDS) to Commissioner Carmen Rubio at the beginning of the month, climate activists in Portland had cause for hope. The city commissioner in charge of BDS is responsible for the city’s decision about whether to grant a land use permit to the oil transport company Zenith Energy to continue operating its oil transportation facility in Northwest Portland. Each year, Zenith transports hundreds of millions of.
The city of Portland granted a land use permit to oil transporter Zenith Energy Monday, paving the way for the company to continue operating its Northwest Portland facility—with conditions. The approval may lead to the end of Zenith’s ongoing legal battle with the city over a previous denial of the permit. In August 2021, the city of Portland denied Zenith Energy a Land Use Compatibility Statement (LUCS) for its oil storage and transporting facility along.
A growing group of climate activists is calling on Portland leaders to pledge stronger action against climate change with a planned school and work walkout and march this Friday. The march will specifically call out four “climate villains” in Portland that activists say are hindering the city’s climate goals. “A lot of people that I know have a very utopian vision of what they think is going on around them [in Portland],” Maia Lippay, one.
The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed a recent land use decision that upheld the city of Portland’s right to deny Zenith Energy a permit to operate its Northwest Portland oil tank facility Wednesday. Zenith’s facility stores oil that arrives by train and ships it out from a dock in Northwest Portland’s industrial zone on the Willamette River. The facility has been under scrutiny from city officials and environmental activists for years for its contribution to.