Public Testimony Needed!

What: A hearing on LD2033 - An Act to Ensure Proper Closure of Oil Terminal Facilities
Where: Room 216, Cross Building, Augusta
When: Friday, Jan. 31, 10:00AM

Want to carpool?: Fill out this form to carpool from the park-and-ride at 274 Marginal Way in Portland. 

If you can't go: Submit your testimony online here. (You'll need the committee name and hearing date.) - (Committee on Environment & Natural Resources)

If you are able to testify in-person, there is a three minute speaking limit, and you need to bring 20 copies of your testimony to submit to the clerk at the hearing. Testimony needs to state whether you support or oppose bill LD2033.

As the oil industry faces the reality of climate change, and as South Portland tank farm operators decide what to do with their aging tanks, we don't want the city to get stuck with the cost of cleaning up the mess of global corporations that shirk their responsibility to the communities where they have made their profits.

The Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources will hear testimony Friday on a bill that would require operators of oil terminals to take more responsibility for the clean-up of their properties should they cease operations. This bill, sponsored by Rep. Anne Carney, takes several important steps in protecting South Portland's future: 

 - Better remediation: The bill requires companies to go further in cleaning up their sites upon closure, so that the land can be used for business, residential, or recreational uses. Facilities that go unused for a decade would be required to close and clean up. The bill gives the state the authority to inspect the remediated property to determine whether the company has done enough.

- Financial assurance: The bill requires companies to estimate the cost of cleanup, as a requirement for license renewal, and to routinely provide proof that they can cover that amount, if their facilities were to close. 

- Includes asphalt and bunker fuel: The bill clarifies that the cleanup and liability rules apply to facilities that store asphalt and bunker fuel as well, which are stored in tanks in South Portland.

Read Mayor Kate Lewis's prepared testimony on the bill. ("Trust is one thing, and acting with prudence is another," she writes.) 

Please note: This prepared testimony is a proposed position paper, and awaits endorsement by the City Council at the 1/28 Council Meeting.

We hope you can lend your voice to this effort. :