Environmental advocates and city councilors remain skeptical, saying the investigation may have excluded critical context. by Jeremiah Hayden The city of Portland says Zenith Energy did not violate city code when it constructed and used new piping without authorization at its facility along the Willamette River between 2021 and 2024. Zenith operates an oil transloading and storage facility at the city’s Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub in Northwest Portland. A report released February 19 says the city investigation found the Houston-based fossil fuel company was in compliance with its franchise agreement with the city. The city’s investigation was guided by administrative staff who provided documents to the law firm Cable Huston, which then reviewed the city’s draft findings before it published the report. The City Council passed a resolution in March 2025 requiring Mayor Keith Wilson to open an investigation into potential violations of Zenith’s franchise agreement. That agreement allows companies to access the city’s rights-of-way, including for construction of pipes for fossil fuels, communications equipment, or other utilities. Zenith constructed the new piping without notifying the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), and transported fossil fuels and renewable diesel on at least 34 occasions over a three-year period. The DEQ initially fined Zenith $372,600 in 2024 for the illegal construction and use of the pipes. Under city law, the company is only allowed to transport renewable fuels through any new piping it installs. “We have heeded the calls of Council and our communities who raised concerns about the City's franchise agreement with Zenith Energy,” Mayor Keith Wilson stated in a press release Thursday. “These findings confirm that the City's public servants continue to do the hard work of adhering to the letter of our laws. The City remains committed to sustainability and safety for all Portlanders, now and in our future.” While Wilson touted the findings, local environmental advocates and some city councilors remained skeptical after raising concerns in the early phase of the investigation over potential conflicts of interest and what they perceived as too narrow a scope. The findings were presented in two separate documents: a 262-page document from City Attorney Robert Taylor dated February 10—which provides background on Zenith’s operations, as well as the city’s findings—and a 15-page document dated February 13 from Cable Huston saying the city’s review appeared to address the main tenets of the Council’s resolution.  Cable Huston wrote in a February 13 memo to Taylor that the scope of its work was limited to the city’s franchise review, and whether that review adequately responded to the directives outlined in the resolution. The memo said Cable Huston was not responsible for confirming the accuracy of the documents it had access to, including some 300 documents Zenith provided to the city. “Accordingly, while we reviewed the same materials the City Council reviewed and the same materials City staff reviewed, our task was not to conduct our own investigation or to independently confirm the accuracy of any materials provided to the City,” the memo said. Council President Jamie Dunphy cosponsored the resolution alongside Councilors Mitch Green, Angelita Morillo, and Tiffany Koyama Lane. Councilors weren’t briefed on the report prior to its release, and said they learned of the report in an email to all city councilors, roughly 20 minutes before a city press release announced the findings. Green said in a statement to the Mercury that he had not had the opportunity to thoroughly review the documents. “I plan to do so with my staff in the coming days to understand whether this process was truly responsive to the resolution we passed as well as the many serious concerns raised over the past several years by community and environmental groups,” Green said. “There have been persistent questions about transparency and process when it comes to the City’s dealings with Zenith. Given that history, and the fact that this investigation appears to have been conducted by the same City officials who oversaw the permitting in question, I will be examining these results carefully.” Notably absent from the background information in the city’s document was mention of Zenith’s prior infractions, including breaking its promises every year since 2018 after saying it would not increase emissions, failing to pay its franchise fees on time in 2018, defying state orders to practice for an oil spill in 2019, engaging in “flagrant violations” of a state air permit in 2021, and violating city lobbying code in 2022, as determined by the City Auditor. Prior to the resolution’s passage, environmental advocates were concerned that city bureau directors had omitted vital information during a work session about Zenith in January 2025. The resolution urged the City Auditor to investigate competing statements made by staff during the work session, but the Auditor’s Office declined to open the investigation. Soon after the franchise investigation commenced, Green and Morillo raised concerns with Wilson, noting that the subject matter experts involved in deciding which documents Cable Huston would receive were the same city staff that facilitated Zenith’s permitting process and who potentially omitted the information from Council presentations. They said it could be perceived as a conflict of interest. It is unclear what documents Cable Huston had access to, and what information remained outside the scope of its investigation. The resolution included reporting on public records from Desmog and the non-profit investigative newspaper Street Roots as exhibits, both of which outlined hundreds of pages of public records that could be used in a broader independent investigation. None of those documents are included as exhibits in documents presented by the city attorney or Cable Huston in their reports. ...read more read less