Clatskanie News

Julie Pairamore reads to her seven-month-old, Timothy, in the family's new Wilsonville home.

Columbia Riverkeeper, an environmental group highly critical of Port of St. Helens plans to bring two coal export companies to their land north Clatskanie, is holding a meeting this week to gain support.

Several bills that would help Oregon homeowners struggling with foreclosure issues have already died in the House.

Ambre Energy and its subsidiary Pacific Transloading hope to utilize dock space at the Port Westward energy park near Clatskanie to barge coal from the Powder River region to the Asia-Pacific market as seen in the illustration above.

After a poorly publicized hearing last week, the Port of St. Helens on the Oregon coast approved a secretive deal to lease space to two dirty coal companies, paving the way for the port to become the largest coal terminal on the U.S. West Coast.

Helens in northwest Oregon has given a green light to two energy companies that want to export American coal to Asia.

Local land developers with successful track records in Columbia County are focused on opening access, and hence expanding possibilities to attract new industrial clients, to a 53-acre property near Columbia City.

A small coal export terminal operates in Seward, Alaska. This terminal was under scrutiny in 2009 because of the coal dust blowing from the facility.

A massive debris flow destroyed houses, damaged U.S. 30 and tore up railroad tracks west of Clatskanie in Woodson in December 2007.

Two separate companies are in early talks with the Port of St. Helens to bring coal-exporting operations to Port-owned property near Clatskanie, a move likely to catch the eye of anti-coal advocates across the state who proclaim the commodity to be dirty and potentially unsafe.

The bankrupt Cascade Grains ethanol plant near Clatskanie received a $20 million state energy loan from Oregon's Small Scale Energy Loan Program before going bankrupt.