2013. During his first term, Portland Pipe Line applied for a permit that would allow it to reverse the flow of its pipelines and—via an arrangement with Enbridge, the Canadian oil infrastructure giant—begin carrying Canadian tar sands oil into this community of 25,000 people. The company also requested a permit to build smokestacks in Bug Light Park, a picturesque slice of coastal
his city limits
Mayor Tom Blake welcomes tourists, not tar sands, to his waterfront.
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lution that says South Portland will do whatever we can to reduce our footprint on the planet—and promoting a new form of extraction, especially one as damaging as tar sands mining in Alberta, increases our footprint. Number two is transportation. Sending the dirtiest oil on earth through our community violates what I consider to be good health and safety standards for South Portland. Number three
Portland Pipe Line brags about its track record, but a single tar sands spill in South Portland would destroy this community
rocky reception When a pipeline company fought to bring tar sands oil into scenic South Portland, Maine, city hall fought back Tom Blake grew up next to
an oil tank. The holding containers owned by various oil companies were so much a par t of the Casco Bay waterfront of his South Portland, Maine, youth that in 1970, when he ran for mock city council in high school, Ted Genoways his proposals included persuading the talks to Portland Pipe Line Corp. to paint its TOM BLAKE tanks green and plant pine trees to hide them from public view. Later Blake joined the South Portland Fire Department, where his responsibilities included inspecting Portland Pipe Line’s main operations once a year and inspecting oil tankers as they arrived in port for off-loading once a day. He came to understand that the local tank farm was more than an eyesore. Today the 100-acre expanse of oil tanks holds some 3.5 million barrels of refined crude, carried in from the Gulf Coast and international refineries. Two pipelines then pump the oil across southern Maine, over the mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont, and under the St. Lawrence River into Montreal. South Portland’s mayors are appointed to one-year terms by members of the city council from within their own ranks. Blake, who was appointed mayor for the first time in 2008, began his second term in early
New England that’s one of South Portland’s biggest tourist attractions. Blake opposes both efforts. We spoke recently at his Casco Bay home—just weeks before an election that could decide the fate of his job and his city’s energy future. How did you learn of Portland Pipe Line’s plan to bring tar sands oil here?
It kind of went under the radar. In fact, when the company applied for its first permit in 2008, there wasn’t a single person that spoke at the planning board against it. Portland Pipe Line received a permit, and then they received a one-year renewal. In 2009 America wasn’t awake to the dangers of tar sands. It was the 2010 Enbridge spill in Kalamazoo [Michigan] that woke everybody up. A million gallons into the river there—and it was this new tar sands product. We started taking a closer look at Enbridge, and what this pipeline would be carrying. What makes tar sands oil different from the oil that has always come through South Portland?
The problems with tar sands are threefold. Number one is extraction. We have a sustainability reso-
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is emissions. South Portland has signed on to the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement, which commits our city to enact policies that meet or beat the targets suggested in the Kyoto Protocol. Building smokestacks would obviously worsen the air that our children have to breathe. This is about those kids, and their kids. So you organized a public hearing.
On March 11, each side—Portland Pipe Line and the Natural Resources Council of Maine—was given a half hour to present. Then we opened up the floor to public comment. We had 450 people in attendance, and 65 spoke. Afterward, the council started exploring our next steps: ordinance changes and pressuring our state representatives to ask the president for a national impact study. Then, in April, my wife and I went to Arkansas on vacation, to go hiking in the Ozarks. Every morning we would see local headlines about the Exxon oil spill in Mayflower. And the more I read, the more I thought: This is South Portland. That pipeline was so similar to the Portland pipeline— similar ages, similar functions,
winter 2013/2014
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