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Plans to build a fracked-gas-to-methanol refinery in St. Helens were dealt a blow late last month when the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals upheld an appeal of a decision by the Columbia County Board of Commissioners to rezone 837 acres of agricultural land for industrial use.

The decision by LUBA remands the decision to Columbia County for the second time; LUBA in 2014 rejected an attempt by the county to rezone the Port Westward property to allow numerous potential uses. This time, just five proposed uses – processing, storage and transportation of forestry and wood products, dry and liquid bulk commodities, natural gas products and break bulk cargo – would’ve been allowed.

But LUBA still found those uses inconsistent with adjacent agriculturally-zoned land. Columbia Riverkeeper and 1000 Friends of Oregon had appealed to LUBA.

The county and the Port of St. Helens had sought to rezone the property – 17 separate parcels – as Rural Industrial Planned Development (RIPD) land. Currently, the property is zoned for exclusive farm use, though it is adjacent to 905 acres of industrial land. That property is served by a 1,250-foot-long dock along the Columbia River. Most of the land is occupied by Portland General Electric, which operates three gas-fired electrical generating plants there, as well as a 1.3-million barrel tank farm, a biomass refinery facility and electrical substation.

The Port of St. Helens in February 2018 reached a lease agreement with Northwest Innovation Works for construction of a fracked gas-to-methanol refinery at Port Westward.

The LUBA decision was based on an analysis that the broad range of proposed industrial uses at Port Westward are incompatible with adjacent agricultural uses, and that the county failed to adequately analyze the impacts of those proposed uses.

The decision means the Port of St. Helens will now be required to disclose the specific uses it intends to employ at Port Westward, as well as potential impacts on adjacent property and environmental resources.