Road Trip: Bradwood Landing

Bradwood Road is blocked off.

“No trespassing without permission,” reads a sign. “Violators will be prosecuted.”

Given that I’ll still apparently be trespassing, even with permission to cross the barrier, I decide not to chance it. Besides, this warning sign, along with another sign that reads “Bradwood: Clean Energy, Good Jobs” is enough to tell me I’m in the right place.

I’ve been driving up and down Clifton Road, which veers towards the Columbia River off Highway 30 at a point about 22 miles east of Astoria. I’m looking for the site where NorthernStar Natural Gas wants to build a terminal to receive liquefied natural gas, which would be shipped across the Pacific Ocean and up the Columbia to this godforsaken stretch of shoreline. The supercooled gas would be re-gassified here and shipped by pipeline across the state.

I’m wondering why they chose a place so far up the river, but as my bartender at the Fort George Brewery points out to me later, they needed a place that wasn’t too close to any major settlements. People get nervous about having large amounts of poisonous, flammable gas too close to their homes.

There are a few houses along Clifton Road — five, by my count, plus someone who lives in an Airstream trailer.

It’s really, really quiet out here and there are lots of birds. Pilings from long-gone piers stick out of the water and there’s a disused railroad track. I’m guessing that Clifton was a stop on the tracks back when the Bradwood Landing site was a lumber mill, with a port and company town, back in the early and mid 1900s. (It shut down in 1965.)

Although the water is deep and huge cargo ships travel further up the river than this, dredging would be required for the LNG terminal to work. The project is affiliated with a pipeline that would go from here all the way to east of Maupin. Standing out on the road, here, it’s hard to imagine the whole thing really happening. There are two other LNG proposals in the works right now, one nearby in Warrenton and one down the coast in Coos Bay. This seems like the worst option of the three — but it’s the only site I’ve visited so far. Stay tuned.