Tell the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality: Deny the Permit for Zenith Energy!

Dear Oregon Department of Environmental Quality,

I urge you to deny the Air Contaminant Discharge Permit for Zenith Energy.

Zenith Energy poses a serious danger to public health, safety, and the environment. Fossil fuel operations like Zenith pose serious health and safety risks to the communities in which they operate. These risks include everything from the highly toxic and carcinogenic chemicals released during loading, transport, and unloading of the crude oil, to the risk of train derailments that can cause deadly explosions and leave behind residues containing heavy metals.

Zenith also has a track record of dishonesty and is not a company that can be trusted to safely operate in our community. Throughout its time in operation, Zenith has failed to comply with important regulations, including in 2018 when the company used diesel instead of crude oil for DEQ's oil spill cleanup test. Zenith claimed it made the decision to use diesel in the exercise because it was transitioning to diesel transloading. However, at the time, Zenith only had three small tanks in use for diesel, and as records show, it has continued to expand its crude oil transloading.

Reports filed with Oregon’s DEQ in previous years show steady increases in fuel moved since 2019, despite Zenith’s 2018 promise to Oregon regulators in its permit application that a planned expansion of its terminal would not lead to such an increase. Thus, Zenith submitted false information in official forms to DEQ.

Zenith's operations pose extreme dangers to the region. The oil inside the railcars running through neighborhoods is highly pressurized, and trains can derail and explode, causing dangerous repercussions to our local communities, our health and safety, and our environment. Train derailments are an unfortunately common occurrence – From Lac-Mégantic, Quebec in 2013, Mosier, Oregon in 2016, and most recently in East Palestine, Ohio in February 2023 (not oil, but still a dangerous train explosion).

I urge the DEQ to use its legal authority to deny this permit for Zenith Energy. DEQ has the power to step in where the City of Portland did not. Regulators cannot pass the buck to each other when it comes to public safety. I urge you to do the right thing.