Despite recent admonishments from City Attorney Sally Daggett that a moratorium represents an opportunity to study an issue, the South Portland City Council on Wednesday decided it doesn’t need a study, at least on the topic of tar sands.

By “unanimous consent,” the council capped a 3.5-hour workshop by authorizing the creation of a three-person Draft Ordinance Committee and charged it specifically with creating land-use rules “to prevent the flow and processing of unrefined tar sands in South Portland.”

“It’s very pleasing to see all seven of us this evening take a stand that we do not want tar sands in our community and that we will not let it happen,” said Councilor Tom Blake, eliciting a round of applause from the 30 or so residents who stuck it out to meeting’s end.

“Excellent work tonight,” Buchanan Street resident Eben Rose told Mayor Jerry Jalbert, after the meeting. “You guys are going to be heroes, internationally. You know that, right? I mean, a little thing like this is really important for the little guys.”

According to City Manager Jim Gailey, as soon as the end of next week he will issue a Request for Qualifications seeking a paid “facilitator” for the new committee. A link on the city website that can be used for file an application to serve on the committee also could appear next week, said Gailey.

Formal votes to hire the facilitator, create and make appointments to the committee, and establish a working budget, will take place at the council’s Jan. 6 meeting. Meanwhile, the vote to actually adopt a moratorium on any construction needed to load tar sands or diluted bitumen onto ships in South Portland, will be held on Monday, Dec. 16.

With the moratorium expected to pass handily only Councilor Michael Pock has spoken against it much of Wednesday’s debate was given to establishment of the draft ordinance committee. During the public comment portion of the meeting, before it was clear what the council intended to do, many in the audience appeared to think a larger study group was in the offing. Most argued against including any representatives from the petroleum industry on that committee.

“It’s crystal clear that the financial interests of API [the American Petroleum Institute] and the Portland Pipe Line Corp. is in stark contrast to the interests of the public, and therefore it would be inappropriate for them to be sitting at the table in an official capacity to regulate themselves,” said Taryn Hallweaver, campaigns director for activist group, Environment Maine.

“That’s like asking people from the tobacco companies to help write an ordinance to help block the sale of tobacco products to minors. Those people don’t belong on the committee,” agreed High Street resident Andy Jones.

“I think I’m going to get in trouble for this, but I’m going to say it I think there should be a representative of the pipeline on the committee,” said Russ Lunt, of Brigham Street, one of the few to speak for allowing industry a vote on the issue. “If they are going to get bashed or accused of things that aren’t true, I think they should have a voice.”

Like Lunt, Front Street resident Dick Ingalls made note of the prevailing view of the audience, which at its high point numbered more than 80 people.

“I urge you to allow at least half of the committee to have a different opinion than 99 percent of what I’ve heard here tonight,” he said.

Ingalls also voiced an opinion shared in private by many representatives of the oil industry, suggesting the moratorium exists only to give tar-sands opponents a second bite at the apple, following the narrow 192-vote loss at the polls Nov. 5 of a Waterfront Protection Ordinance. Petitioned onto the ballot by grassroots environmental group Protect South Portland, the WPO had the same goal as the new ad hoc Draft Ordinance Committee, but a broader scope designed to tighten every possible loophole, which made many voters skittish about unintended consequences.

“To proceed on after a failure to win in a public election in this country, with any council or group of people making a decision against the will of the other side of the vote, doesn’t sound very American to me,” said Ingalls. “It’s not fair to the people who voted against this to not be represented on any committee put together.”

Hillside Avenue resident Don Russell, who called the moratorium language “illegal, unnecessary and inflammatory,” made a similar statement, essentially calling the moratorium, “WPO II.”

“What is needed is a fair, unbiased process focused on fact-finding, research and deliberation, or the council and city instantly loses all credibility, he said.

At every hearing on the moratorium since an emergency Nov. 6 council workshop called in the wake of the WPO vote, industry executives, including Portland Pipe Line CEO Larry Wilson and Russell’s brother, Sprague Energy vice president Burt Russell, have said moratorium language establishing the need for a temporary construction ban has “a number on inaccuracies.” However, they have declined to detail those errors, preferring, they’ve said, to hash that out during the moratorium’s fact-finding process a process that has now been bypassed.

“We are deeply disappointed by the City Council’s decision to create a narrowly based ordinance committee that expressly excludes working waterfront members who provide the critical energy infrastructure that we rely upon, and who have been valued members of the community for decades,” said Jamie Py, president of the Maine Energy Marketers Association, in a statement released Thursday afternoon.

“After voters rejected the WPO in November, we looked forward to participating in a collaborative education and fact-finding process that involved the entire community, and all sides of this important issue, in the finest tradition of South Portland,” said Py. “Instead, we have seen a stacked deck and rush to pass a poorly drafted ordinance based on fear, rather than fact. It is disheartening to see the City Council bend to the will of a vocal minority that chooses to ignore the needs of the working waterfront and its people, the critical nature of energy production in our everyday lives and the science of oil sands.”

But the end goal of energy production seemed far less important to the collected audience at Wednesday’s meeting than the means by which it is to be done, using a product often referred to by environmental group 350 Maine as “the dirtiest fuel on the planet.”

Two recent developments seemed to generate a conviction that the petroleum industry is less concerned with fueling the bus than with throwing South Portland under it. One was a Dec. 3 letter to South Portland councilors from Harry Ng, vice president and general counsel of the American Petroleum Institute.

While his letter doesn’t threaten a lawsuit explicitly, it does say the moratorium, if passed Monday, “would have strong legal challenges,” based largely on the perception that banning tar sands, even if accomplished through local land-use regulations, would be an unconstitutional attempt to regulate interstate commerce.

“The API is no longer a line item on a financial disclosure,” said Rob Sellin, co-founder of Protect South Portland, referring to the presumption that the trade association bankrolled all direct mailings circulated by the Working Waterfront Coalition during the recent WPO campaign.

“They’ve really come out of the shadows,” said Sellin. “They’ve really declared an all-out offensive against the citizens of South Portland and our elected officials.”

The second development, reported in the Montreal Gazette and other Canadian news outlets, was the unanimous Dec. 6 decision by a National Assembly committee to OK the reversal of a pipeline Line 9B, from Alberta to Quebec belonging to oil giant Enbridge. Although still subject to final approval by Canada’s National Energy Board, the move is widely seen by local environmentalists as the first step in transporting tar sands to South Portland for shipment to international processing plants, rather than as the culmination of Enbridge’s announced goal, to lower Quebec’s dependence on crude oil now shipped up the pipeline from Maine.

“Even though Portland Pipe Line Corp. says it has no tar-sands plan, tar sands is on its way, so they need to pick up their pace and so do we,” said Crystal Goodrich of Highland Avenue. “They are motivated purely by money.”

“The oil industry veracity is not their strong point,” said Greg Lewis, of Mussey Street. “They are not to be trusted. I got a distinct [whiff] of burning trousers as soon I walked in here and heard [pipeline employee] Dave Cyr once again saying we misunderstand their intentions.”

As he spoke, Lewis waved an email related to PPL’s 2009 approval, since expired, to reverse the flow of its pipeline to import Canadian tar sands. Copied on that email was Cyr, as the pipeline’s treasurer, and Wilson, as well as Patricia Aho, now commissioner of Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection, but at the time a paid lobbyist for API.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Cyr again repeated the PPL mantra that “we have no tar sands project” on the table, while, in a letter sent to councilors just hours before the meeting, he asked that his company be included in any moratorium talks.

“The council should reject fear and embrace an inclusive, thoughtful and deliberate committee process that allows for the introduction of expert opinions, scientific fact, and truth about a wide range of topics that will serve to educate the public and give the city the information it requires to think and plan more clearly about the future,” he wrote.

Instead, it appeared based on comments made by councilors that they already have in hand all the facts they need to justify placing an order for new zoning rules aimed at banning tar sands – at least in an unrefined form – from South Portland.

“I’m the first to say, I don’t want unrefined tar sands here,” said Councilor Maxine Beecher.

“I do not like tar sands either, it’s a nasty thing,” said Councilor Pock.

“We need to find a way to prevent it from coming to our city,” said Councilor Melissa Linscott.

“We need to rewrite the ordinances to make sure that tar sands doesn’t come to our community,” said Councilor Patti Smith.

“We have a responsibility to create this ordinance for the health and safety of our community,” said Councilor Tom Blake.

“I don’t think I want something that’s going to be more damaging to our environment and to our citizenry if there is a spill,” said Councilor Linda Cohen. “There’re enough things in this city already that could go wrong.”

Still, given repeated claims that a tar sands distribution point at local ports would lower property values, Cohen chided residents for laying the sin of greed solely at industry’s feet.

“We all have an economic interest in what happens with tar sands,” she said.

Finally, Cohen predicted that API might not be the only entity to sue South Portland for stepping on Congressional toes in its attempt to ban tar sands from coming to the city across state and international borders. Recent fines levied against Scarborough by U.S. Fish and Wildlife over supposed violations of the Endangered Species Act shows who wields the real power, she said.

“We may have the federal government come after us,” said Cohen. “If they’ll go after a town for a dog killing a bird, they may come after the city of South Portland for regulating commerce.

“There are no promises here, but I don’t want tar sands in South Portland,” she said.

Birch Road resident Barbara Simon wiles away a 3.5-hour workshop meeting of the South Portland City Council on Wednesday, Dec. 11, by catching up on her knitting, while more than 80 residents spoke for and against an ad hoc committee that will rule on the fate of tar sands in the city.Lee Smolovitch of Willow Street, one of several dozen residents to speak during Wednesday’s South Portland City Council workshop, shows a map of the route wound by the Portland-Montreal pipeline though the Sebago Lake watershed area.

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