The city of Portland may be required to defend its decision to grant Zenith Energy a key land use credential to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA), following a legal challenge from a coalition of climate organizations and residents. 

The group of petitioners, which includes climate advocacy groups 350 PDX, the Northwest Environmental Defense Center (NEDC), Willamette Riverkeeper, and 18 city residents, announced its intent to appeal three weeks after the city of Portland approved a Land Use Compatibility Statement (LUCS) for Zenith, allowing the oil storage and transport company to comply with a state mandate. Zenith opponents say the city wasn’t transparent in its dealings with the company, and didn’t allow for public involvement before issuing the LUCS. 

Mary Stites, staff attorney at the Northwest Environmental Defense Center, told the Mercury if the appeal is successful, Zenith’s LUCS would be remanded back to the city, “ideally with further mandates to facilitate a transparent public process.” 

Stites said “advocates have many questions about the enforceability and integrity” of the “conditional” LUCS granted to Zenith by the city, which she said was developed through “closed-door, off-the-record discussions.” The city’s conditional approval mandates Zenith phase out all crude oil use by 2027, and reduce existing storage tank capacity by 2029, among other requirements. But petitioners say it’s unclear how the city will ensure Zenith complies with these mandates. They also think the city failed to allow for sufficient public involvement during the LUCS process.

Local climate advocates have long spoken out against Zenith, which operates a terminal in Portland’s Critical Energy Infrastructure (CEI) hub, and criticized the city’s seemingly cozy relationship with the company. But this is the first time advocates have moved to take legal action against the city’s decision to issue Zenith a LUCS, and they hope bringing the case to LUBA will lead to a different outcome than they’ve seen in the past. 

Dineen Crowe, campaign manager at 350 PDX, said in a press release that although “Portlanders worked hard to make Portland more transparent, accountable, and democratic when we enacted city charter reform,” Mayor Keith Wilson and city administrators “chose to continue a problematic pattern of background dealing with Zenith Energy” when they granted the company a LUCS. 

“[They] ignored calls from the new City Council, tribal entities, and thousands of Portland residents to slow down and allow public participation,” Crowe wrote. “Enough is enough!”

Climate advocates aren’t the only ones skeptical of Zenith and the city’s oversight of it. When the city announced its decision to issue Zenith’s LUCS, several members of Portland City Council expressed concern over the process. Councilors Angelita Morillo, Mitch Green, Jamie Dunphy, and Tiffany Koyama Lane crafted a resolution calling on Mayor Keith Wilson to investigate Zenith’s potential violations of its franchise agreement with the city. 

The resolution also asks the Portland Auditor’s Office to investigate “the competing statements and arguments heard by Council” at a January work session on Zenith Energy. According to the councilors, city staff may have made false or misleading statements at the January work session, including about Zenith’s future expansion plans and when the company submitted its application for a new LUCS. 

City councilors expect to hear the first reading of the Zenith resolution at the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee meeting on March 10.