Court voids license for Astoria LNG terminal

Bradwood Landing was an industrial site from 1856 until 1965. It housed a lumber mill, company town and deep water port.

The Associated Press, Oregon Live, March 02, 2011

ASTORIA (AP) -- The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided Wednesday to throw out the license for the proposed Bradwood Landing liquefied natural gas terminal near Astoria, the Daily Astorian reported.

But the court didn't rule on an aspect of the case that would affect North Bend's Jordan Cove project.

The court vacated Bradwood Landing's license because the project's promoter is bankrupt and the license can't be transferred to another party.

It didn't comment on the merits of the project, nor did it comment on an issue that could affect the proposed Jordan Cove LNG terminal in North Bend: The fact that the Federal Environmental Regulatory Commission gave the facility a license before state permits were issued.

That was why the states of Oregon and Washington, the Nez Perce Tribe, and a coalition of environmental groups appealed FERC's decision to the appeals court. On Wednesday, the court noted that the state's concern was moot.

In January 2010, the state and environmental groups requested FERC to rehear a license decision on the Jordan Cove LNG terminal project proposed for the North Spit of Coos Bay, for the same reason.

If FERC denies that request, the coalition has said it plans to appeal the decision to the appeals court.

Opponents pleased

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued the license to construct an LNG terminal and pipeline near Astoria on Sept. 18, 2008.

Said Columbia Riverkeeper Executive Director Brett VandenHeuvel, 'Bradwood LNG was a dominant environmental issue for five years, and now it is officially over." Foes feared possible impacts on fish, forests and farms.

The Bradwood project was planned to connect to a proposed Palomar Pipeline. After Bradwood's bankruptcy filing, Palomar and NW Natural effectively owned the Bradwood LNG permit. The Astorian said the future of the Palomar pipeline is unclear now.

Reporter Gail Elber contributed to this report.

She can be reached at 541-269-1222, ext. 234, or at gelber@theworldlink.com.

Copyright 2011 The World.

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Gary Park, Petroleum News, Sept. 5, 2010

One of 10 proposed Canadian import terminals is working; one to be export project

Ten green bottles hanging on the wall …” goes the old song for children. Let’s make that “ten LNG projects” that once dangled the prospect of LNG imports to Canada for regasification into billions of cubic feet of gas for sale to North American customers by about 2015.

Not anymore. One is up and running and one has been converted to an LNG export venture.

The rest have either fallen off the wall, or, in the industry jargon, entered a “calm period.”

Low gas prices, weak industrial demand, galloping shale gas production and an inability to secure LNG supplies have produced a perfect storm that jolted the ambitious proponents awake.

The only operating import facility is the Canaport terminal in New Brunswick, operated by Spain’s Repsol as 75 percent owner and Irving Oil, a 25 percent partner.

It started importing LNG cargoes from Trinidad and Egypt last year, with storage capacity of 10 billion cubic feet and send-out capacity of 1.2 bcf per day. How much is actually being delivered to the U.S. Northeast is not known, but Repsol Energy Canada has yet to feel a squeeze from shale gas that would jeopardize its existing market, although it has left open the option of selling its LNG elsewhere.

Some action on Kitimat

The only other LNG project that shows any traction in Canada is the Kitimat LNG joint venture by Apache and EOG Resources, which was switched from an original import plan to an export facility for 700 million cubic feet per day because of a forecast surge in gas volumes from British Columbia tight and shale gas regions along with higher prices in Asia.

In addition to Apache and EOG, there have been hints of four other memorandums of understanding with prospective gas suppliers, reducing the risk of exploring for and developing Canadian gas at a time when the market outlook in the U.S. is so grim.

Although the Kitimat partners are engaged in what they call a “methodical” planning process they have candidly said there is a long road ahead to secure oil-indexed LNG contracts and buyers, likely in Asia.

For the rest, the challenges are too much, despite the optimism expressed by Calgary-based consultant Ziff Energy Group earlier this year that global gas demand will recover, creating a shortfall of LNG supply in 2014.

A Ziff report said front-end engineering is under way for some projects in Australia, Indonesia and Algeria, but others in Nigeria and Russia have little appeal to investors because of the political and investment climates in those countries.

Middle East best prospect

The report forecast that most liquefaction projects over the next four years will be built near stranded gas reserves in the Middle East, primarily Yemen and Qatar, with additional supplies from Australia, augmented by smaller volumes from Angola and Peru.

Ed Kallio, Ziff’s manager of gas consulting, said increasing LNG demand should see new supplies “absorbed quite quickly” by 2014, leading to a tightening of LNG available to North America.

“Because many Asian and European long-term contracts are linked to oil prices, we should see more traditional parity between gas and oil pricing,” he said. “Gas prices are likely to move higher when LNG gets tight worldwide.”

Kallio said demand should double in Asia over the next decade and Europe will experience strong growth, along with the new markets of India, Pakistan and China, and traditional growth in Japan and Korea.

He said that even if North American shale gas production grow to 18 billion-20 billion cubic feet per day by 2020 from its current 8 bcf-9 bcf per day, conventional, tight and coalbed methane gas will have to be augmented by LNG to balance the continent’s demand for about 70 bcf per day, which should rise to 78 bcf per day by the end of the decade.

The Ziff report estimated LNG supply will exceed 50 bcf per day by 2020, with more than 10 bcf per day added by 2014 from a dozen projects.

Shale gas changes equation

However, Ziff Vice President of Gas Services Bill Gwozd concedes that, although conventional gas production is declining and market demand is rising, the emergence of shale gas has changed the equation, forcing most LNG proponents to either stop, or reduce work.

The latest to be shelved is the C$900 million Maple LNG project by a unit of Dutch-based 4Gas, along with its partner Suntera Canada.

General Manager Derek Owen said plans for a three-tank terminal about 120 miles east of Halifax, Nova Scotia, will not proceed due to a lack of demand in Canada and problems obtaining supplies for regasifying into 750 million cubic feet per day.

An option to acquire land from a municipal government has been dropped along with the engineering phase. The Maple LNG gas might have provided feedstock for a proposed petrochemical plant by Keltic Petrochemicals, whose President Kevin Dunn said higher gas prices in Europe and Asia are seeing possible LNG shipments being diverted from North American terminals.

Owen said federal and provincial environmental permits will remain valid until 2011 and 2012.

The rest of the pack

Of the other projects:

• In early 2007, Anadarko took a US$111 million charge to write off its investment in the Bear Head project that was originally supposed to send out 1 bcf per day to the U.S. and eastern Canada in 2008.

• Newfoundland LNG, which planned a transshipment and storage terminal, appears to have entered hibernation after an initial flurry of announcements in 2007.

• Quebec-based Energie Grande-Anse planned to start service by mid-2012, with initial send-out capacity of 1 bcf per day. Proponents say the project is now in a “calm period.”

• The C$840 million Rabaska, Quebec, project by Enbridge, Gaz Metro and Gaz de France hit a familiar wall, unable to obtain long-term LNG commitments and refuses to make any more moves until it does.

• Similarly, the Gros Cacouna regasification terminal planned for Quebec by Petro-Canada (now Suncor Energy) and TransCanada is tinkering with construction costs while it continues the elusive search for a company willing to deliver gas to North America after Russia’s Gazprom iced plans to be the major supplier.

• WestPac LNG is in a holding pattern, three years after scuttling plans for an import terminal near Prince Rupert on the British Columbia coast and announcing plans for a C$2 billion transshipment terminal and gas-fired power generation plant on Texada Island between Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland.

• Teekay Corp., a storage and transportation company, abandoned plans earlier this year for a floating gas liquefaction plant near Kitimat, despite an agreement with Merrill Lynch Commodities to develop the facility.

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Maine's Calais LNG loses its No. 1 financial backer

Quentin Casey, Telegraph-Journal (Nt. John, NB), July 23, 1010

The main financial backer of a plan to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in Calais, Maine is stepping away from the controversial project.

Downeast LNG Inc.'s rendering of what their proposed liquefied natural gas terminal and import facility in Robbinston would look like from a bird's eye view.

On Wednesday, Calais LNG - the company behind the proposed terminal and pipeline - sent a letter to Maine's Board of Environmental Protection, requesting the board postpone today's meeting on the project.

"Calais LNG currently is in the process of transitioning ownership interests and financial backing of the project to another entity," states the letter.

"In particular, GS Power Holdings, LLC, the managing member of Calais LNG, is in the process of selling its interest in the project to a new financial partner. "

In the letter, Calais LNG says it expects the sale to occur within three weeks, at which time another "conference of counsel" could be scheduled.

However, the letter also hints the project could be in trouble if the sale collapses.

"In the event that the transaction noted above does not close by August 11, Calais LNG would expect to withdraw all Calais LNG applications filed with the Maine Board of Environmental Protection," states the letter.

The Calais LNG project, which the developers previously said is supported by investment banking giant Goldman Sachs, calls for an LNG terminal and storage facility to be built on the St. Croix River in Calais.

The proposal also includes a pipeline to connect the terminal to the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline, which flows from Nova Scotia into New England.

On Thursday, news of the shakeup within Calais LNG led the project's opponents to reach one conclusion: the plan is foundering.

"It looks to me like Goldman Sachs has figured out that this is not going to be a profitable venture. To be blunt, they're ditching the project - that's what it looks like to me," said Robert Godfrey of Save Passamaquoddy Bay, a group of citizens on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border who oppose LNG development in the bay.

The group argues that local LNG projects would put residents at risk, hurt the local fishery and kill tourism in the area.

"We're hoping this is the last gasp for Calais LNG, but we don't know yet," Godfrey said in an interview from Eastport, Maine.

Arthur Gelber, Calais LNG's development manager, did not immediately respond to requests made for an interview on Thursday.

Local residents, however, are not alone in their protest of LNG terminals in the bay.

In January, the Graham government called on FERC to quash the proposed Calais terminal, saying the project poses "unacceptable risks to New Brunswick".

In a motion filed to FERC, lawyers for the province outlined a host of reasons why the proposal should be rejected.

"In addition to the potential risks to the safety and welfare of those living and working near the LNG vessel transit route, there are also potential economic impacts," stated the letter, dated Jan. 27.

"For example, LNG vessel traffic is likely to impose a serious impact on commercial fishing, aquaculture facilities and Canadian tourism. Many New Brunswick citizens depend on the resources in this area for their livelihoods."

The province's letter also emphasized the Canadian government's position on the matter: that it will forbid LNG tankers from entering the bay.

The Canadian government considers the area internal waters, but it is also the only route available for tankers to access the proposed terminal sites in Maine.

"Remarkably, Calais LNG ignores this substantial obstacle," stated the January letter.

In a previous interview, Gelber disputed the province's concerns, noting that large vessels already travel the proposed tanker route.

And according to Gelber, many people in St. Stephen - on the New Brunswick side of the border - are "very excited" about the jobs and economic spinoffs the Calais project will bring to the area.

"They feel that anything good for Calais is good for St. Stephen. We see tremendous support in the local communities," he said in January, noting the project could cost upwards of $1 billion and be completed by early 2014.

The Graham government is also protesting a similar project under consideration by FERC. Downeast LNG, proposed for Robbinston, Maine, would sit directly across from St. Andrews, N.B.

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Companies make case for more time to ship LNG *

By ERIC LIDJI, Anchorage Daily News, June 20th, 2010

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The owners of the liquefied natural gas facility in Nikiski have formally asked the U.S. Department of Energy for more time to ship Alaska LNG to markets overseas.

ConocoPhillips and Marathon submitted an application on June 8 for a two-year extension of the export license, asking the federal government to rule within 90 days.

Unusually, the companies are not asking for permission to ship more natural gas overseas, but rather want more time to ship volumes approved for export in 2008.

That authorization let the companies ship 99 trillion British thermal units of natural gas to international markets starting on April 1, 2009. As of May 24, the companies had shipped only 35 trillion Btu of that allotment, and the companies estimate they will have shipped only 55 trillion Btu by March 31, 2011, when the current license expires. The extension would give the companies until March 31, 2013, to ship remaining volumes.

The companies blamed the slow pace on their decision to export LNG from Alaska on a single tanker, rather than two, "in light of economic and efficiency considerations."

They also said that several conditions including the global LNG market, the ability to find economic shipping options, and "strategic decisions regarding the future role of the Kenai LNG Facility" could crimp future shipments even with a license extension.

The facility is the only LNG exporting operation in the country and makes deliveries to Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Tokyo Gas Corp. under contracts that expire March 2011.

The primary stumbling block facing any extension of the export license is whether local demand for natural gas can be met while LNG is being shipped to other countries.

Broadly, the owners dont see a conflict.

"Rather than viewing the export and local markets as mutually exclusive, in this instance they should instead be seen as symbiotic," the companies wrote in their application.

Proponents view the facility as a regional stabilizer that stores excess production in the summer that can be called upon when demands peaks during winter cold snaps.

So far this year, exports to Japan were lower in January and February than in March and April, as more gas volumes stayed in Alaska during the coldest months of the year.

The owners believe an extension can serve as a bridge until the region gets more storage.

ConocoPhillips and Marathon pointed to several recent studies showing adequate near-term supplies in the Cook Inlet basin. They also pointed to short-term supply contracts Marathon recently entered into with Enstar Natural Gas and Chugach Electric Association that provide natural gas to the two largest users in the state during the time period of the extension. ConocoPhillips and Marathon said their decision to export, should the license be extended, would depend on honoring local contracts first.

Those contracts dont entirely cover local demand, though. The Enstar contract leaves a 2 billion cubic foot shortfall in 2011 and 2012. Provisions in both contracts also allow Marathon to curtail planned local deliveries if the Department of Energy doesnt extend the export license and Marathon is forced to shut-in wells as a result, causing a drop in deliverability.

LNG exports from Alaska share a trajectory with the local market.

When exports began in 1967, the Southcentral region faced a surplus of natural gas supplies discovered by accident in the search for oil resources in the Cook Inlet basin.

The producers at the time signed long-term contracts with area utilities, some lasting decades. Put at ease about local needs, the federal government approved long-term export licenses, including one from 1967 to 1984 and another from 1988 to 2004.

Over the last decade, though, declining production fueled debates over the price of local gas supplies, leading to shorter contracts between producers and local utilities. In turn, the Department of Energy began approving shorter-term licenses for LNG exports, including one from 2004 to 2009 and the current license from 2009 to 2011.

The current license drew some opposition. The State of Alaska originally questioned it, but eventually gave its approval in return for drilling commitments and other concessions. Chugach Electric Association, at the time still searching for a supply contract to meet its own shortfalls, tried unsuccessfully to have the approval overturned.

Now, though, the request for the extension of the license is being received favorably. The Alaska Department of Natural Resources supports the request. The Alaska Senate and House of Representatives both unanimously approved resolutions in favor of keeping the export facility in operation. Fresh off two consecutive contract approvals that satisfy its own needs through April 2013, Chugach Electric also backed the request for more time.

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Remaining LNG projects in Oregon face uphill fight

By Ted Sickinger, The Oregonian, May 08, 2010

When NorthernStar Natural Gas suspended development last week of the Bradwood Landing LNG terminal on the lower Columbia River, the company blamed the project's demise on death by bureaucracy.

Bradwood Landing was an industrial site from 1856 until 1965. It housed a lumber mill, company town and deep water port.

After six years and $100 million spent in a regulatory odyssey for terminals in Oregon and California, NorthernStar's investors saw little prospect of success, and pulled their support.

"The extended delays in the processing of state and federal permits for Bradwood Landing and the difficult investment environment have forced us to suspend development," said NorthernStar Natural Gas President Paul Soanes in a news release. "In particular, the challenging regulatory environment gives investors pause..."

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To be sure, spending $100 million before ever driving a nail is a staggering sum -- one that offers a cautionary note for the two remaining LNG proposals in Oregon -- one in Coos Bay and the other in Warrenton. To reach the regulatory finish line, each of those projects still faces a daunting lineup of interdependent state, local and federal permitting processes.

Meanwhile, the economics of importing natural gas are looking bleak. Financial backers are more reluctant than they were a few years ago. And domestic competition is coming on strong, with a proposed pipeline from Wyoming on the verge of final approval and nabbing the same customers an LNG terminal in Oregon would need.

Yet the moral of NorthernStar's story isn't necessarily that an LNG terminal isn't viable in Oregon, or that the permitting process is impossible, observers say. Rather, it may be that NorthernStar went about it in the wrong way, and ultimately sank its own ship.

The fatal flaw for Bradwood may have been the Bradwood location itself. The problem was there from the get go.

Site selection is primarily a process of eliminating unsuitable sites and defining locations where the project is the best fit.

From the beginning, Clatsop County's planning department said unequivocally the LNG project was inconsistent with the county's land use law. Instead of resolving those issues up front, the company convinced the Clatsop County Board of Commissioners to ignore its own staff and approve the project.

The Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals remanded the project twice to the county. The land use approval is the most fundamental piece of the project, the certification that the facility meets county and statewide planning goals. After six years and $100 million, NorthernStar didn't have it.

LNG projects still pending Project: Jordan Cove LNG terminal and Pacific Connector Pipeline Location: Coos Bay Status: The project has received conditional federal approval, though Oregon has asked regulators to rehear that decision because state permits were not in place when it was granted. Developer still working through clean air, clean water and coastal zone management permits at the state and federal level. Project: Oregon LNG terminal and pipeline Location: Warrenton Status: Developer awaiting a draft environmental impact statement and biological assessment from federal energy regulators this summer. Also working through local land-use compatibility, clean air, water and coastal zone permits. Administrative law judge is examining the company's conduct with landowners during the environmental review process for its pipeline.

Bradwood, an abandoned mill site 25 miles east of Astoria, sits atop what many biologists say is important salmon habitat, if not a critical nursery.

The idea of dredging that stretch, driving supertankers full of a volatile commodity upriver to unload, then allowing ships to suck up millions of gallons of ballast water for a return journey across the Pacific, was anathema to conservation groups. It also raised serious concerns among state and federal regulators, who have overseen billions of dollars worth of salmon restoration efforts on the river.

NorthernStar never subscribed to the notion that its site was particularly sensitive habitat, and tried to convince regulators its mitigation efforts were more than adequate to deal with the "minimal" impact the terminal would have.

One fundamental piece of its salmon protection plan was to screen ballast water intake to protect juvenile salmon. Federal regulators made fish screening a condition of its license. But NorthernStar never came up with anything beyond a conceptual design for a fish screen.

Meanwhile, it argued with scientists.

"That's lesson 101 in project development," said Bob Braddock, project manager of the Jordan Cove Energy LNG project in Coos Bay. "You don't make the rules, you comply with them."

Until recently, NorthernStar's experts second-guessed regulators' data requests for modeling the river's hydrology. It protested the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality's requests to conduct additional sampling. And it complained about regulators continually moving the goal posts to the point that they would never have a definitive answer.

Nina DeConcini, Northwest Region administrator at DEQ, acknowledges that the LNG terminal permitting has taken a long time, but she said that without any prior experience with an LNG terminal, the impacts are largely unknown.

"DEQ is obligated to conduct the most scientifically rigorous evaluation of the impacts of these kinds of projects," she said. "We will have the same standards, and the same information requests for the other LNG projects. We try to treat everyone equally."

Peter Hansen, chief executive of Oregon LNG, says he too worries about a permitting process in which all the agencies want to be last. He believes there are circular references among state, local and federal permitting processes that make it difficult to get started.

"It's a bring-me-a-rock, no-I-don't-like-that-rock, bring-me-another-rock kind of approach," he said. "It becomes enormously complicated because there are no firm rules."

On the surface, neither Oregon LNG nor Jordan Cove terminals appear to have the same degree of ecological issues as Bradwood, and state regulators say their relations with the companies have generally been smoother.

Still, each project faces significant hurdles. Oregon LNG is early in its permitting process, and opponents are protesting its potential impact on nearby Young's Bay fishery, and the public safety of locating an LNG terminal close to an airport or the city of Astoria. The company's lease with the state may become an issue, and it has angered landowners along the pipeline that would connect the terminal with a gas hub in Molalla.

Jordan Cove has its own pipeline problems, in addition to a potential market problem. With a 230-mile pipe, Jordan Cove is an expensive project that would send gas into the same hub that would be served by the new pipeline from Wyoming. That competition would make both projects less competitive -- or one of them not feasible.

No matter how those specifics play out, opposition to LNG isn't backing off.

"We don't need LNG," said Brett VandenHeuvel, executive director of the conservation group Columbia Riverkeeper. "There are massive environmental impacts and pipelines crisscrossing the state.

"The reasons why people opposed Bradwood still carry over to Jordan Cove and Oregon LNG."

--Ted Sickinger

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Backers suspend Bradwood Landing liquefied gas terminal near Astoria

By Ted Sickinger, The Oregonian, May 04, 2010

NorthernStar Natural Gas Inc. said Tuesday that it is suspending
efforts to develop a liquefied natural gas import terminal at
Bradwood Landing on the Columbia River, 25 miles east of Astoria.

The announcement ends a six-year effort that consumed as much as $100
million of investors' capital and countless hours of regulatory work
while sparking a firestorm of public opposition from property owners
and environmentalists.

The Houston-based energy development company sent out a one-page news
release Tuesday afternoon quoting NorthernStar President Paul Soanes
saying extended delays in state and federal permitting and the
difficult investment environment "have forced us to suspend
development."

The company characterized its move as a "suspension" of the project,
not a termination. It did not return follow-up calls on Tuesday.

Mike Carrier, natural resources policy director for Gov. Ted
Kulongoski, said the company told him Tuesday that another developer
could conceivably resurrect the project. But Carrier said the company
told him its financial backer, a private equity fund that has put
$100 million into the company's LNG proposals in Oregon and
California, was pulling the plug.

NorthernStar began development work nearly six years ago at an
abandoned mill site on the lower Columbia River. At the time, gas
prices were high and importing the commodity to the United States
from abroad seemed like a lucrative opportunity.

LNG is natural gas that has been superchilled to a dense liquid for
transportation on oceangoing tankers. It is then regasified and
shipped via pipeline for local consumption or storage.

In addition to regulatory delays, NorthernStar's investors were
doubtless focusing on the fact that domestic reserves of natural gas
have soared in recent years with the advent of new drilling
techniques to access unconventional reserves in shale formations.

That increased supply, in tandem with the economic recession, has put
domestic gas prices into a free fall, undermining LNG terminals that
recently opened on the Gulf of Mexico and in Baja, Mexico, and
casting doubts on efforts to build any more.

Two other companies are still trying to obtain federal and state
permits to build similar LNG import terminals in Oregon. One is in
Warrenton, just west of Astoria on the Columbia River, and the other
is in Coos Bay on the central coast. Those projects are also
competing with a proposed pipeline that would import more gas from
Wyoming to customers in Oregon and California.

Many observers think the first project to reach the regulatory finish
line will pre-empt the others, leading competitors to abandon their
projects.

Peter Hansen, chief executive of the Oregon LNG project in Warrenton,
said his company remains committed to developing its project. "We
believe that it is in the Pacific Northwest consumers' best interest
to have access to all sources for clean, efficient energy such as
LNG," Hansen said.

Bradwood's suspension also has implications for a controversial
200-mile pipeline that Northwest Natural Gas Co. and TransCanada
Corp. were planning to build to connect the LNG terminal with an
interstate pipeline in central Oregon near Maupin.

The Palomar pipeline, as it's known, has attracted as much
grass-roots opposition as the LNG terminals -- though its backers
have consistently maintained that the projects weren't linked -- and
they intended to go ahead with an eastern section of the pipeline
even if Bradwood didn't happen. That section of pipe would transfer
gas from the interstate pipeline in central Oregon to customers in
the Willamette Valley.

In a statement e-mailed Tuesday, NW Natural Chief Executive Gregg
Kantor said his company remained committed to that project. "It's our
belief that if an LNG terminal is not built in the Northwest, the
east segment of Palomar increases in importance as a way to bring
additional domestic supplies from the Rocky Mountains and western
Canada and to enhance system reliability across the region," he said.

Project opponents nevertheless celebrated the announcement by NorthernStar.

"It's a huge victory for Oregonians, for family farms, for clean
water, for salmon habitat, for fisherman," said Brett VandenHeuvel,
executive director of the conservation group Columbia Riverkeeper.
"LNG has no place in Oregon, not only Bradwood Landing but the other
two LNG terminals are not viable projects either."

- Ted Sickinger

NOAA Fisheries drops appeal of LNG Port

By JEFF BARNARD, AP Environmental Writer, The Olympian, February 16, 2010

GRANTS PASS, Ore. – The Obama administration won't be appealing federal approval of a liquefied natural gas port on the lower Columbia River.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion Tuesday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals saying NOAA Fisheries was dismissing its petition for review of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval of the Bradwood Landing project.

NOAA Fisheries is still considering whether the project may threaten the survival of salmon in the river, in a study known as a biological opinion.

The states of Oregon and Washington, Columbia Riverkeepers and the Nez Perce Tribe are still appealing the approval, arguing FERC made its decision before environmental reviews and state permits were in.

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