The next time you fill up your car or board a plane at PDX, ask yourself where that fuel came from. For about 90% of Oregon, the answer is a six-mile stretch of Northwest Portland along the Willamette, tucked below Forest Park: the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub. Hundreds of storage tanks, most built before modern seismic codes, sitting on dredged-up river soil that geologists expect to liquefy when Cascadia hits.
For years this was an issue only emergency managers and neighborhood activists lost sleep over. Not anymore. City Council has deadlocked 6–6 on it more than once, Mayor Wilson had to break a tie to approve the sale of Zenith Energy’s terminal to Miami based I Squared Capital, and on Thursday, October 1, council takes up the rules that will govern how much fuel sits on that riverbank for the next decade.
My guest this week has been in the middle of that fight. Marnie Glickman is an attorney, a fellow Lewis & Clark Law alum, a former Ralph Nader staffer, and the executive director of Braided River Campaign, a group founded by Portland teachers that has become one of the loudest voices on the CEI Hub.
Here’s what we got into:
What the hub actually is. Eleven tank farms owned by some of the biggest names in fossil fuels (Chevron, BP, Shell, Zenith), holding up to 350 million gallons on liquefiable soil inside the Portland Harbor Superfund site. The worst case is a Cascadia rupture bigger than Deepwater Horizon. The more likely case might be a fire at the foot of Forest Park.
Why not just move it? Because nobody wants it in their backyard, and it’s tethered to the Olympic Pipeline. Marnie’s answer: reduce demand, don’t relocate the danger.
The Zenith / I Squared fight. Braided River wasn’t trying to block the sale. They wanted council to use the ownership change to give Portlanders third-party enforcement rights under the franchise agreement. The six councilors and the mayor who voted no were persuaded by the city attorney that council lacked authority to add that term, which raises a bigger structural question: should Portland’s legislative branch have its own lawyer?
Capacity vs. volume. The staff proposal from the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability would cut storage capacity 20% by 2036. The catch is that tanks aren’t filled to the top, so shrinking the cup doesn’t necessarily reduce the coffee. An amendment package from Councilors Mitch Green, Elana Pirtle-Guiney, Sameer Kanal, Tiffany Koyama Lane, and Olivia Clark would add annual volume reduction benchmarks and close a loophole that could actually let aviation fuel storage grow.
What would really make us safer. Start with emergency planning. There’s a preschool in Linnton, inside the hub area, with no CEI Hub emergency plan. Then there’s demand reduction through building electrification, protected bike lanes, and protecting PCEF dollars.
Dream big. Portland stopped the Mount Hood Freeway and turned Harbor Drive into Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Marnie’s vision for the “North Reach” of the Willamette includes a Superfund cleanup starting in 2028, public river access, housing, schools, shade, and a real neighborhood where the city’s biggest heat island now sits.
Plus: Trash news correspondent Elinor Jones on celebrity baby announcements, Celine Dion’s comeback residency, and why her will is going to require her presence in the background of every future cultural moment.
Take action before Thursday, October 1. Council will discuss the amendments that day. Submit written testimony, email your councilors, or better yet, call and leave a voicemail. Braided River Campaign has testimony instructions and talking points on its homepage.
Links
Braided River Gallery: now at SW 5th & Harvey Milk
Elinor Jones: “The Trash Report” in the Portland Mercury
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