The Port of Portland, which hopes to place the propane terminal near Kelley Point Park on the east end of Terminal 6, even issued a statement last month calling the facility, pitched by Canadian firm Pembina, “one of the largest single private capital investments in the city’s history.”
And yet, the Mercury has learned, the fate of those big promises—indeed, the fate of the propane terminal itself—is already in doubt. Ironically, thanks to something quite small.
The project, as currently envisioned, runs afoul of the city’s zoning code—specifically, the city’s rules for safeguarding sensitive wildlife along the Columbia. And unless Portland City Council is willing to slightly tweak those rules, at a hearing as soon as next spring, then the project would be impossible to build.
