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client4
This was discussed 6 days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24147284&goto=news

This article is written just to flame Facebook and provides little value.

Kednicma
Willamette Week is one of the two standard rags in the Portland area (the other is the Portland Mercury) and this story was also in the Oregonian (aka OregonLive) from your own link. It matters to Oregonians quite a bit; perhaps it's not interesting to folks who don't live in the area.

Edit: Also, it's worth keeping in mind that this is not a fresh story. The Oregonian covered it a year ago [0].

[0] https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2019/06/facebooks-new...

Animats
It's an undersea cable landing point. When it's all done, there will be, at most, a modest building with some terminal equipment. Like this one in Hawaii.[1]

[1] https://bchdesign.com/portfolio/hawaiki-submarine-cable/

m463
What do they even do in that building? It's a cable - does it need to be manned? guarded?
sbierwagen
Routers, the actual optical terminals, high voltage power supplies for the inline optical amplifiers, (Undersea fiber cables need to repeat the signal every few hundred km, and those repeaters need power) a surprisingly large number of batteries needed for the gap between power loss and the backup generator getting up to speed, a fair amount of empty floor in case they want to add more equipment later, etc. That 2,700ft^2 runs out fast.
Simulacra
I think it's more than just an undersea cable and a modest building with terminal equipment. It's Facebook doing what they do best: Whatever the heck they want to, without regard to anyone else. The permit seems to be in order [0] but I am deeply suspicious of Facebook's behavior.

[0]. http://www.oregoncoastalliance.org/documents_19/edge-cable/0...

dmix
Im conflicted, I dislike overbearing NIMBY home owners groups full of bored retirees even more than I do Facebook.

I’ve also learned from first hand experience that blatant hit pieces should be treated with high levels of suspicion.

cameldrv
Man I hope when I retire I find better things to do than whine about stuff like this.
durwood
I also hope when you retire no one decides to turn the neighboring residential lot into an industrial drill site
fisherjeff
Wait... Oregon real estate (and real estate in general) appreciated significantly between 2008 and 2017. So why did Joey Harrington sell this beachfront property at a nearly 20% loss?
sergers
That's what I was wondering.

Why did the guy sell at a loss when the market was up.

Kednicma
Because Harrington ended up not being as valuable in the NFL as everybody expected. His career's basically complete as an athlete and there will not be more windfalls of cash. Rumor is that he was willing to part with the property for affordability reasons.
jeffbee
If there's some empty lot on your street and you really strongly value the emptiness of it, what you should do is buy it.
overgard
NIMBY!

That is seriously all this is.

ponker
These same people would have had the same ire for a rich guy of the wrong politics building a mansion in the wrong style there.
xref
My primary concern was the 6500 gallons of drilling fluid abandoned in the hole as with normal coastal erosion it ain’t gonna stay there, but it appears largely non-toxic? From research online it contains bentonite clay which is fine, but also unnamed “chemicals”. I can’t immediately find if that’s a problem, like if they contain heavy metals or anything sketchy.

Honestly that is a detail the author should have researched and included in the article if it was supposed to be actual journalism...