Federal energy regulators issued a draft analysis Friday of the environmental impacts of the Jordan Cove Energy Project, the controversial proposal to build a liquefied natural gas terminal on the north spit of Coos Bay and a feeder pipeline that would stretch across southern Oregon to a gas hub in Klamath County.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission also opened a public comment period on the analysis and project until July 5. Public hearings will be held in southern Oregon.

The draft is not a tentative decision, but an analysis by FERC staff with 137 recommendations to reduce and mitigate impacts should the commission ultimately decide to approve the project.

The agency will seek feedback from the company on relevant issues raised during the comment period, then proceed to a final licensing decision. The company is hoping that decision will come by January.

Staff concluded that the project “would result in temporary, long-term, and permanent impacts on the environment.” But it said many of the impacts would not be significant or would be reduced to less than significant levels with the implementation of proposed impact avoidance, minimization, and mitigation measures. “However, some of these impacts would be adverse and significant,” it said.

Those included significant impacts on housing in Coos Bay; permanent and significant impacts on the visual character of Coos Bay; and adverse impacts on 13 federally-listed threatened and endangered species, including the marbled murrelet, northern spotted owl, and coho salmon.

“Pembina is carefully reviewing the extensive document received today," the company said in a statement. "We can, though, reconfirm three important things: Pembina’s commitment to protecting the environment and meeting all state and federal requirements, working with landowners and communities on issues important to them, and that we are confident that our application will successfully meet FERC’s strict approval criteria when they make a final decision in January 2020.”

The LNG terminal would include a gas conditioning facility, five liquefaction trains to supercool the incoming natural gas, two LNG storage tanks, as well as loading platform and berths for the 120 tankers a year that are expected to ship natural gas from the facility to customers in Asia. The 229-mile, 36-inch-diameter gas pipeline would run through parts of Klamath, Jackson, Douglas, and Coos counties and be capable of shipping to 1.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to the facility.

The project’s current owner, Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corp., has indicated the project would cost some $10 billion, making it potentially the most expensive construction project in Oregon history and likely that Pembina would seek partners if the project is approved.

The temporary construction boom that would entail, involving thousands of workers, has been a big selling point for the project’s local proponents, who contend it will give a major economic boost to a part of the state that has been hard hit over the last three decades by the loss of forestry and other natural resource jobs.

Once up and running, backers claim the project would create 200 permanent jobs and generate $60 million in new tax revenues, or fees in lieu of property taxes, for local governments in southern Oregon, as well as $50 million in state tax revenues.

Opposition to the project has been intense, too. Opponents include environmental, tribal and recreational groups worried about the impacts on waterways, cultural resources and endangered species; property owners whose land could be seized by eminent domain for the pipeline, and others worried about the public safety risks involved in siting a terminal, gas storage tanks and marine terminal on a sand spit that sits directly in an earthquake and tsunami zone.

A day before the commission issued its analysis, opponents turned out to protest against the project at the state Capitol. The Oregon Department of State Lands received 50,000 public comments on the project’s removal fill permit, an outpouring of public sentiment that is testament to the passions it the project has aroused during the nearly 15 years that various iterations of the project have been under consideration. That comment period ended in February, but the agency has delayed its permitting decision until late September because of the complexity of the project and the number of comments to process.

This is not the project’s first trip through the regulatory process. In March 2016, FERC denied a permit for the project, saying backers had not demonstrated sufficient public need for the project to outweigh the negative impact on landowners that would be impacted by the Pacific Connector Pipeline. It subsequently denied a rehearing request but did so without prejudice, leaving the door open for the company to reapply.

The project’s former owner, Veresen Inc., re - filed its federal application in 2017, confident the project would get a different reception under an energy commission that has since been remade under the Trump administration. Trump’s staff had expressed strong support for Jordan Cove, part of its push to increase fossil fuel production and exports and achieve U.S. energy independence. Veresen was purchased by its larger rival, Pembina, in 2017.

Opponents issued a news release calling for FERC to deny the project again, and for state agencies under Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to protect Oregonians from the terminal and pipeline.

“FERC was right to reject this dangerous fracked gas export terminal last time, when FERC explained that there was no evidence showing that anybody actually wanted to buy gas from this boondoggle,” said Rhett Lawrence, conservation director of the Sierra Club’s Oregon chapter. "Nothing has changed since then. (The draft analysis) provides no additional evidence of need or market support for this project.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story said the project owners refiled their application for Jordan Cove with FERC in 2018. The former owner, Veresen Inc., re-filed the application in 2017. Pembina also disputed the number of protesters who turned out at the state Capitol last week.