Credit for the following goes to the North Coast Oregon Blog. More on the stink coming out of public officials handling of LNG and their various conflicts of interest...



"We've been very straightforward," said Cathy Tortorici, NOAA Fisheries Oregon Coast/ Lower Columbia Habitat Branch chief. As of early this week she said she had not yet seen a hard copy of the FERC request and guidance.Newspapers around the Northwest cut, copied and pasted the quotes into their articles during the first weeks of January 2010. "It could take longer than 135 days" because of the complexity of the issues involved, Tortorici said. Her staff is working to develop a timeline for completing the BiOp.The decision to be made was whether the construction and operation of a liquefied natural gas terminal in the lower river would jeopardize the survival of 13 Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead stocks that are listed under the Endangered Species Act. The agency that would make that decision was NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Services and the ominous warning from the agency's local branch in charge of the evaluation, Lower Columbia Habitat Branch, was that the answer would take a long, long time in coming.What was left out of the articles as they circulated in January was the fact that the chief of this local branch, Cathy Tortorici, who was influencing the decision making at NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Services, had what many might think of as a slight conflict of interest. Tortorici has also been serving as the President of the Willamette RiverKeepers (WRK), who often joined their sister group, Columbia RiverKeepers (CRK), in protesting LNG on the Columbia River, along with protesting pipelines that may be beneficiaries of the new influx of natural gas.

READ IT ALL HERE: http://northcoastoregon.com/clients/northcoastoregon/fosters-emails-answer-the-puzzle-and-ask-more-questions-p3178.htm?twindow=Default&smenu=1&mad=No