This is some of the rough terrain the Coos County natural gas pipeline was built through in 2003. This part of the pipeline project is on a hillside off of Old Wagon Road just inside Douglas County. World File Photo

COOS BAY - The Sierra Club is recruiting an army of one to help stop a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal from being built on Coos Bay's North Spit, as well as the construction of an accompanying 250-mile-long pipeline.

The club's Oregon chapter is looking to fill the full-time position for a community outreach coordinator, based out of Coos Bay, within a month. The designation of a Sierra Club employee in Coos County - in the heart of Oregon's timber country - would be a first for the environmental group, said Oregon Sierra Club Chairwoman Jill Workman.

“Our job isn't to make a ruckus in the community,” she said. Instead the staffer will raise issues to help the public “that doesn't have a voice.”

The job will last for a half a year and pay $2,500 per month.

According to the verbiage on the club's Web site, the Sierra Club's goal is straightforward: “help support and expand the alliance of opposition to planned LNG port proposal while laying the foundation for opposition for proposed coal bed methane projects.”

Founded in 1892 by John Muir, the Sierra Club is one of the nation's leading environmental watchdog groups. Workman said Southern Oregon is home to nearly 3,000 members, some of whom already have pitched in to fight the projects.

“We have an active group that is there,” Workman said.

In fact, she said, it was a combination of members and nonmembers who contacted Sierra Club leaders, asking why the organization had remained silent.

“They were concerned about the LNG terminal and why the Sierra Club was not organizing here,” Workman said. “They don't like the terminal. They're afraid of it, and see the Sierra Club as a viable force to fight it, or improve it to a tenable state.”

That's the way Fred Heutte, the energy coordinator for the Oregon Sierra Club, sees it too.

From the outset of the project, anti-LNGers have espoused the dangers of situating an LNG terminal so close to a populated area. While Heutte admits the “LNG industry overall has a good safety track record,” there is still reason to be concerned for the environment.

“There are better alternatives,” Heutte said. “LNG is a greenhouse gas. It will have some effect on global warming.”

In addition, Heutte ticked off a litany of other concerns, including potential impacts to the flora and fauna on the North Spit, the commercial and recreational fisheries and what harm dredging Coos Bay may have.

While the Sierra Club is interested in the proposed LNG terminals on the Columbia River, Heutte said the Southern Oregon project has gained attention because of the companion pipeline that could cross vast tracts of public and private properties to Malin, just north of the California border.

The Sierra Club is worried the pipeline project, dubbed the “Pacific Connector,” could become a sequel to the Coos County pipeline project which was mired in controversy, sparking multiple lawsuits (see sidebar).

Heutte characterized the construction practices employed during that project as awful, and while past performance does not necessarily predict future results - especially with a different contractor behind the high-powered drills - Sierra Club leaders contend the new project's potential for further environmental disturbances has piqued their interest.

“The (Pacific Connector) crosses a lot of different federal lands - many types of geography,” Heutte said. “This is a very difficult engineering project. The project is running through some pretty important forest areas.”

And because of that, he said, the Sierra Club wants someone near the battleground. Along with organizing community forums, rousing landowner opposition and establishing the foundation for potential legal challenges, the Sierra Club worker also will inventory the land the terminal and pipeline will transect, Heutte said.

“It will disturb all those pristine areas that our people care about,” Workman said.

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The introduction of yet another adversary into the LNG fray isn't a surprise to the projects' champions.

Troy Ruflin, project manager for the Pacific Connector project, said Williams “invites participation” from organizations, even the Sierra Club. The same words of welcome were uttered by nearly every other LNG proponent, too. Bob Braddock, the director of the Jordan Cove Energy Project, the company proposing the LNG terminal, said he's always anticipated the Sierra Club would weigh in on the project because the environmental group opposes all LNG facilities, no matter where they are located.

“We figured we wouldn't be discriminated against,” he said.

In a sense, Braddock said, the Sierra Club's involvement is a back-handed compliment to the project.

“They don't waste their energy on things they don't think might not become a reality.”

He said the Sierra Club entering the mix of LNG foes will not force Jordan Cove proponents to change tactics.

“We have always taken a position that all we can do is lay out as many facts as we can and let people decide for themselves. That will not change,” he said.

Braddock said he does not foresee any environmental challenges that would spell doom for the project on the North Spit. Jordan Cove project leaders already are regulated by state and federal officials who, he said, are paying close attention to environmental impacts.

But the pipeline project could be different. Pipelines, he said, “inherently have the potential to create more impacts.”

“That's the nature of the beast,” he said.

Steve Pappajohn, the president of Methane Energy Corporation, which is still in the exploratory stages of extracting coalbed methane from deep below Coos County's surface, welcomes the debate.

“We know that people have an interest in preserving the environment that they live in - and so do we,” Pappajohn said. Both MEC and Jordan Cove officials have run the gauntlet at numerous public forums, where they've been blasted by foes and praised by friends. Pappajohn uses words such as “openness” and “transparency” at public debates and forums, and invites anyone to come tour the drilling sites just south of Coos Bay.

“When we do natural resources development, we look at ways not to just come into an area and stay within regulations, we look at ways to improve conditions,” Pappajohn said.

While the overtures are friendly for now, what lays in store between the practitioners of the clashing ideological movements remains up in the air. Workman said she is unsure of the reception her staffer will get once on the ground in Coos County - home to those of like mind, but also a place where a person might see the bumper sticker, “Sierra Club Sucks.”

She insists the Sierra Club will work to find common ground with those it opposes, a practice already employed by Sierra Club chapters across the state, including in Eastern Oregon where ranchers are running industrial-sized farms.

While Braddock maintains the insertion of the Sierra Club into the fracas isn't going to change the way Jordan Cove conducts business, he's not discounting the group.

“It's a hired gun” Braddock said. “Just like I am a hired gun to develop the project.”