Previously, I wrote about the International Port of Coos Bay staff apparently advocating on behalf of Oregon Resources without benefit of commission approval or a public meeting. From the commissioner’s packet of November 19, 2009 I quoted the following and encouraged everyone to file a FOIA request with the Army Corp of Engineers when Dan Smith thanked Port Director, Jeff Bishop for helping them get their permits.

Upon a motion by Commissioner Scott (second by Commissioner Smith) the Board of Commissioners authorized staff to explore the record surrounding the Oregon Resources Project and come back to the Commission at a later date concerning advocacy.

During a January 28, 2010, SCDC meeting Dan Smith, COO of Oregon Resources is warning his investors may bail out if they can’t start driving pile at their processing plant by March 15. The Army Corp is telling them they will not have a permit in time to start work by this deadline. Miraculously, in February, Smith advises the commission they have a permit and that ORC’s attorney says without the help of Jeff Bishop it could not have been done. Commissioner Kronsteiner’s company, West Coast Contractors gets the contract to drive pile at the processing plant.

In April, I asked the commission when the decision had been made for the port to advocate on behalf of ORC as there is no evidence in the public records that staff requested permission during any public meeting. Bishop advised me staff never took it to the commission because all they did was make inquiries, they did not advocate.

As I requested of the readers of this blog, I filed a FOIA request with Army Corp.Today I received a response from Army Corp claiming there had been no communications with the port regarding Oregon Resources.

A follow up email to the FOIA officer, Janice Sorenson confirms …”Yes, a telephone log would be included in the phrase all communications.”

So either the Army Corp did a poor job of researching or the inquiries occurred in private and were not ethical or someone isn’t telling the truth. See for yourself in the video montage below beginning with Dan Smith on January 28, 2010 at the SCDC meeting, moving to the the February 18, 2010 port meeting where Smith thanks staff for talking to DEQ and gives credit to Bishop for the permit, to April 15, 2010 when Bishop confirms he spoke with Army Corp. You decide. For my part I have serious doubts about what went on here and emailed the FOIA office and Bishop to see if we can clear this up.

Maybe Arne Roblan should investigate this matter since he seems so concerned with public process at the moment.

The recent submission to the AIA Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT) spearheaded by South Coast Development Council (SCDC) rightly list the many features of the Coos Bay Area that set it apart from other coastal Oregon cities. The Int’l Port of Coos Bay is the closest deep water port to Asia and the only deep water port between Seattle and San Francisco. The Southwest Oregon Regional Airport is the only commercial airport on the Oregon Coast.

The Bay Area Hospital is a major medical facility and serves much of the coast. The award winning Bandon Dunes Golf Courses draw people into the area increasing the number of executive jet flights from 2 to over 5000 per year (I threw that last part in). Both employ hundreds of people.

The strategic benefits and the natural beauty and world famous golf course and the hunting and fishing and the farms and ranches are not what makes Coos County and the Coos Bay Area famous, unfortunately. Coos County is famous for being a plunderers playground and a text book example of what can go wrong when short term gains as promoted by groups like SCDC overshadow long term benefits. Al Sandine, in his book ‘Plundertown USA: Coos Bay Enters the Global Economy’ likens SCDC to the mill owners and job bosses holding sway over the dependent work force of the early 1900s. Sandine points out that to be a voting member of SCDC costs $10,000 eliminating the common worker as a participant in local development schemes.

David Cay Johnston devotes two full chapters to Coos County in his book ‘Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill)’. SCDC receives taxpayer money from the local municipalities and the County but maintains a quasi-governmental/private status apparently enabling it to conduct closed meetings, if it wants to, further excluding the commoners from being ‘in the know’. SCDC, Friends of New and Sustainable Industry (FONSI) and most of the elected leaders in Coos County have presided over and continue to support the plunder of pubic resources and there is probably no more glaring present example than the $30M+ airport and as Johnston notes, a federal subsidy for corporate jet use…

Keiser (owner of Bandon Dunes) is not unique in benefiting from this subsidy…What makes Bandon Dunes distinctive is there is no other beneficiary for the use of the airport at Coos Bay. Commercial passenger traffic has been steady for years at about 100 passengers a day. And those corporate jets, except for maybe three per year, are drawn by the golf links Keiser owns…

Each time an executive takes the company jet to play at Bandon Dunes you pay part of the cost. And the airport improvements, done solely to benefit Bandon Dunes, are also paid for when you buy a commercial airplane ticket or an Oregon lottery ticket.

The total subsidies received just by Bandon Dunes exceed the value of the jobs produced. Given the tens of millions of dollars that have flowed in and through Coos County since I moved here in 2003, why is there nothing to show for it? Why are we hovering at 15% unemployment?

The SDAT intends to send

…multidisciplinary teams of professionals from across the country to provide a road map for communities seeking to improve their sustainability—as defined by a community’s ability to meet the needs of today without reducing the ability of future generations to meet their needs.[emphasis mine]

Coos County has a long and dirty history of enriching the few at the expense of future generations. The old growth timber was cut at rate greater than it could recover from leaving future generations no jobs and little to look forward to beyond pulp mills.

The same mindset that allowed Coos Bay to become dependent on one or two big corporate players for a resource extraction economy is still at work today. SCDC, FONSI, at least two of the three county commissioners and probably most of the professional board members at the local chambers of commerce, urban renewal groups and the Rotary clubs, etc… are maneuvering and lobbying to sell the farm, or in the case of ORC, mineral rights, and sell it on the cheap and the electorate have no one to blame but themselves. These same people presided over the gas pipeline fiasco and the late Ron Opitz, former director of SCDC came from NW Natural, now leasing the pipeline.

So why, with a thirty year record of dismal economic indicators and a 15% unemployment rate, do local leaders continue to make the same decisions? Why do they try and repeat the same failed business model, over and over again? Why do our local leaders allow Coos County to act as a funnel threw which taxpayer money flows straight into foreign corporate bank accounts?

If you read the leaked RNC power point mocking their own donors, prestige, power and fear are primary motivators for donating to the GOP (not that all members of the groups above are Republican). Maybe shucking and jiving with ORC and Jordan Cove and hobnobbing with Bandon Dunes offer some perceived prestige and power in the minds of these people. Enough they would throw caution to the wind and sacrifice the public trust?

Perhaps as Joe Bageant points out in his amazing book ‘Deer Hunting With Jesus’ we have elected people that are little more than functional illiterates and are just plain incapable of the type of critical thinking necessary to be wise stewards of public assets. The SDAT application clearly wasn’t written by a wide swath of the citizenry and reflects a very worm’s eye view of the reasons for Coos County’s ills.

Whatever the reason, Coos County has some elections coming up and needs to make some hard decisions or the continued depression of these last 30 years will likely only get worse.

Many thanks to Pat Reid, for sharing this article written for The Sentinel this week, so I can offer it here. Pat has written very eloquently and professionally for our community before talking about ethanol and this week he turns his analytical skills to LNG.

On the energy front, this nation is at a crossroads. Do we continue to throw money at the fossil fuel industry (represented in large part by the API – American Petroleum Institute) or do we finally awaken to stand up against this fossil fuel lobby and the interests that they represent and just say NO. No to greater dependence on foreign sourced fossil fuels which only enrich the oil/gas corporations, undermines our national security and provides funding to our enemies. We the people need to start saying YES to renewable, domestically produced, and sustainable sources of energy that increase the wealth and stability of this country – allowing for an overall national way of life that models sound energy policy for the rest of the world to emulate. In my view, we must come to grips with the reality that there is only a relatively modest amount of fossil fuels left here on our own shores and begin in earnest to invest in & develop our own sources of RENEWABLE energy. Wind, solar and biofuels are viable right now and will only enhance the health of the economy, environment, and national security. The use of fossil fuels, especially supertanker shipped LNG, increasingly makes us less secure as we are forced to rely on countries that are ruled, in large part, by unfriendly dictators who despise countries with democratic forms of government. These dictatorships have and will continue to use a certain percentage of these petroleum/gas dollars to pose a threat to our national security.
LNG is 100% foreign sourced from many of the same volatile countries that provide much of the oil to satisfy our current addiction. We are setting ourselves up for an unhealthy dependence to yet another fossil fuel that undermines our overall security, adds to the global climate change problem, and does nothing to help wean us off our oil habit. LNG coming into Coos Bay, or any other U.S. port, is just a bad idea if looked at with any kind of long term perspective.
Our federal, state & local dollars would be much better spent by developing and establishing industries that harness the renewable power of the wind, the sun, biomass derived fuels (ethanol & biodiesel) and even the tremendous potential energy of wave/tidal action just off the coast. These energy sources would provide many good paying jobs that enable us to use our existing electrical grids and power our cars with very little modification needed. Every state in the union has the potential to harness at least two of these renewable sources of energy and do it reliably within 5 to 10 years. We must commit to stop throwing our money at fossil based fuels (especially those 100% foreign sourced) and demand an Apollo type program be launched that breaks this country free of our crippling dependence on dwindling supplies of fossil fuel and moves us toward renewable energy independence and greater national security.
Ten years from now, I am one who would like to see the goal of having at least 50% of our energy coming from wind, solar, advanced biofuels, and other sources of renewable energy. Tell your elected officials that you want this kind of future and urge them to work toward this goal. Remind them to say no to things like LNG that ultimately undermine our overall prosperity & security.

Well, all hell appears to be breaking loose at the Port of Coos Bay as all the deals concocted appear to be falling apart. Between the railroad embargo, the integrated LNG slip dock ballast issue and the lack of any firm deals between Maersk, or Jordan Cove or anyone else, it is hard to understand how the Port operates at all. They did approve a 5% increase in docking fees at the Marina.

May take me a few days to absorb everything plus the information packets supplied to the commissioners are not readily available to the public. How the public is expected to contribute to decisions investing their tax dollars is hard to understand without adequate time to review paperwork and assess the merits of data presented. Nevertheless, several of us will dig in and see if we can make sense of the $1M already spent on dredging for a slip dock that has now been put on hold.