Ruling delivers setback for Jordan Cove pipeline route

Kathleen Johnson, a circuit court judge in Douglas County, Oregon, this week reversed an action by the county to continue extending a conditional land use permit applying to a seven-mile portion of the proposed 229-mile Pacific Connector pipeline.

The pipeline would supply the Jordan Cove LNG export terminal that Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corp. wants to build.

The project is seen by supporters of natural gas development in western Colorado as a potential stable, long-term outlet to Asian markets for locally produced gas.

Jordan Cove project opponent Stacey McLaughlin, who owns about a mile of land Pembina hopes to build the pipeline across in Douglas County, led the legal challenge over the county permit, which was issued in 2009. She said the county kept granting two-year extensions to the conditional use permit as the project developer continued to fail to begin construction on it, though that isn’t allowed under the county’s land use laws when the construction delays are the developer’s fault, which she says is the case.

With the judge’s ruling, “Our little seven-mile stretch of pipeline effectively shuts down this project, at least for the time being,” McLaughlin said Thursday.