Local Opposition Affects Oregon Biofuel Plant

- by Al Maior­i­no, March 3, 2015, Envi­ron­men­tal Leader

In 2014, the Unit­ed States Depart­ments of the Navy, Ener­gy and Agri­cul­ture award­ed a $70 mil­lion grant to Red Rock Bio­fu­els for the design, con­struc­tion, com­mis­sion­ing and per­for­mance test­ing of a new bio­fu­el refin­ery.  The biore­fin­ery is planned for Lake­view, Ore­gon, close to the Fre­mont Nation For­est and the inter­sect­ing state lines of Ore­gon, Neva­da, and Cal­i­for­nia. This new renew­able project aims to expand mil­i­tary fuel sources, improve reli­a­bil­i­ty of the nation’s fuel sup­ply and pre­vent sup­ply dis­rup­tion to rein­force the nation’s ener­gy secu­ri­ty.  Despite these ben­e­fits that bring addi­tion­al employ­ment and rev­enue ben­e­fits for the local com­mu­ni­ty of Lake­view, NIMBY, or “not in my back­yard,” oppo­nents to bio­fu­el refiner­ies across the Unit­ed States run fierce oppo­si­tion cam­paigns that threat­en project com­ple­tion.  These cam­paigns can often result in project delays or even can­cel­la­tion all togeth­er, and despite a prop­er­ly zoned site.

Two Lake Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­ers, Brad Win­ters and Ken Kest­ner, sup­port the bio­fu­el project and believe that when com­plet­ed, the project will improve Lakeview’s air qual­i­ty by cre­at­ing health­i­er forests and pre­vent­ing for­est fires. Addi­tion­al­ly, Ore­gon Busi­ness wrote an eco­nom­ic report stat­ing that the bio­fu­el plant would cre­ate up to “25 direct and 79 to 109 indi­rect and induced jobs,” result­ing in an increase in labor income. How­ev­er, Com­mis­sion­er Win­ters acknowl­edged the myths pro­mot­ed by the oppo­si­tion that take hold by not­ing that those opposed to the cre­ation of the biore­fin­ery are not bas­ing their con­cerns and objec­tions on fac­tu­al infor­ma­tion.  Win­ters empha­sized the impor­tance of com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers’ atten­dance at review work­shops and hear­ings in order to become more informed as state and fed­er­al agen­cies eval­u­ate the pro­pos­al as a pre­req­ui­site for completion.

Despite a suc­cess­ful rezone of the pro­posed site by the Lake Coun­ty Plan­ning Board, oppo­nents remain focused on keep­ing the pro­pos­al out of their com­mu­ni­ty. They fear that trans­port­ing these bio­fu­els through the Lake Coun­ty rail­road from Lake­view to Alturas could pos­si­bly result in derail­ments with dam­ag­ing effects on the com­mu­ni­ty. The oppo­si­tion is high­ly orga­nized, hold­ing meet­ings to strate­gize and plan­ning peti­tion dri­ves to re-open the process for pub­lic com­ment before the Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­ers. As is the case with some projects, the oppo­si­tion group is also insti­gat­ing a recall dri­ve against Lake Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­ers and Lake­view Town Coun­cil mem­bers, show­ing that all land use tru­ly is polit­i­cal in nature.

Mean­while, sup­port­ers are hop­ing that this project will receive the nec­es­sary approvals accord­ing to cur­rent plans so con­struc­tion can begin in sum­mer or fall of 2015 for oper­a­tions to com­mence by 2016.  Just as the oppo­nents have uti­lized grass­roots tac­tics to add to their num­bers, so too much sup­port­ers. To save time and mon­ey, com­pa­nies must engage com­mu­ni­ties and stake­hold­ers through­out the entire per­mit­ting process to ensure that com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are informed and engaged every step. By iden­ti­fy­ing and mobi­liz­ing mem­bers of what is often the silent major­i­ty, pub­lic sup­port can be built through­out Lake Coun­ty for a quick and suc­cess­ful project approval.

Project Announce­ment

From the moment a project is announced, com­mu­ni­ty out­reach should be planned to intro­duce strate­gic mes­sag­ing and edu­cate the com­mu­ni­ty on the details of the bio­fu­el pro­pos­al. Tar­get­ed direct mail affords pro­pos­als the oppor­tu­ni­ty to high­light the project’s ben­e­fits with respect to jobs, rev­enue and clean ener­gy gen­er­a­tion.  When fol­lowed close­ly by tele­phone iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, res­i­dents will express their lev­el of sup­port for the project in a way that allows bio­fu­el com­pa­nies to fol­low up with sup­port­ers after this sur­vey to build a rap­port. The key point is nev­er wait until oppo­si­tion aris­es to ini­ti­ate a cam­paign to build pub­lic support.

Devel­op an Updat­ed Database

As sup­port­ers, unde­cid­eds and oppo­nents are iden­ti­fied through dig­i­tal and tra­di­tion­al vehi­cles of out­reach, it is crit­i­cal to code them into an orga­nized res­i­dent data­base. By cod­ing for polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion, dis­trict, income, polit­i­cal dona­tions and any oth­er demo­graph­ics, this data­base allows for out­reach to be struc­tured like a polit­i­cal-style cam­paign. Quite often point­ing out holes in the oppo­si­tion group’s evi­dence only makes them advo­cate hard­er for their own cause, but unde­cid­ed res­i­dents are far more like­ly to give thought­ful con­sid­er­a­tion to new data. There­fore, with an orga­nized data­base, these unde­cid­ed res­i­dents can be tar­get­ed with unique­ly struc­tured mail­ings and com­mu­ni­ca­tions to build sup­port in a more cost-effec­tive manner.

Dig­i­tal Advocacy

Sup­port­ers are prob­a­bly already advo­cat­ing for your cause on social media even if they are not doing so as a uni­fied group. Cap­i­tal­iz­ing on this pos­i­tive activ­i­ty is essen­tial. Hold sup­port­er meet­ings reg­u­lar­ly to unite sup­port­ers and urge the cre­ation of a sup­port­er-led Face­book group or Twit­ter account to keep all sup­port­ers informed of upcom­ing hear­ings and project devel­op­ments. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are more like­ly to respond to a call to action that is sup­port­ed by their peers than one com­ing direct­ly from a busi­ness. Advo­ca­cy on social media quan­ti­fies sup­port in the com­mu­ni­ty, but even more impor­tant­ly with access to qual­i­ty com­ments, pub­lic offi­cials and news out­lets can gain insights to qual­i­ta­tive com­mu­ni­ty sen­ti­ment as the rea­sons for sup­port are shared among advocates.

Hear­ing Attendance

Oppo­nents are great at turn­ing out in large num­bers for hear­ings. Reac­tive cam­paigns often are at a dis­ad­van­tage from a pri­or hear­ing at which a few hun­dred oppo­nents showed up with but­tons and signs against a pro­pos­al. How­ev­er, by build­ing pub­lic sup­port at the out­set, bio­fu­el com­pa­nies will have the peace of mind know­ing sup­port­ers will be informed and will­ing to speak on the project’s behalf at pub­lic hear­ings. Let­ter writ­ing to news­pa­pers and pub­lic offi­cials will prime the audi­ence of both the com­mu­ni­ty at large and pub­lic offi­cials as hear­ings approach. These steps are nec­es­sary for any renew­able ener­gy project’s speedy approval in order to demon­strate sup­port before pub­lic offi­cials in a tan­gi­ble way.