EPA Says Another Cabrillo Port Permit Will Be Delayed

CONTROVERSIAL PLAN—BHP Billition, the world’s largest mining conglomerate, seeks to anchor a floating liquefied natural gas terminal 13.8 miles off Malibu’s northwestern flank.

.Safety, Pollution and Operational Issues Dog the Controversial LNG Proposal

BY HANS LAETZ

For the third time, a key permit being sought by BHP Billiton for its proposed liquefied natural gas terminal off Malibu has been delayed by federal environmental regulators, dealing yet another setback to a project that opponents say has been poorly designed.

The Environmental Protection Agency last week announced that Cabrillo Port’s water discharge permits, which were on track to be granted this fall, must be resubmitted for another round of public comments.

The company has redesigned its boilers to reduce the amount of thermal pollution proposed for Cabrillo Port, but ocean experts said the newest version of the floating LNG regasification and storage unit plan would still warm up the ocean far beyond what California laws allow.

And in a related matter, the California Public Utilities Commission decided last week to allow foreign natural gas into the state’s distribution pipelines, even though regional and state smog regulators say “hot gas” will worsen air pollution problems in California.

The Australian mining conglomerate BHP Billiton proposes to anchor a floating, aircraft carrier-sized factory ship 13.8 miles off Malibu’s northwest end to receive shipments of liquefied natural gas. BHPB needs air pollution, water discharge, and overall land use permits from the U.S. and state governments to operate its proposed Cabrillo Port LNG terminal on public tidewaters lands.

All three of those permits have been delayed, some by nearly two years, as government regulators seek answers to safety, pollution and operational questions that have been raised by Malibu residents, and lawyers and scientists at the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara.

Last week, EPA officials in San Francisco revealed that BHPB had made major changes in its design for the ship’s cooling system, which was originally designed to dump 2.3 billion gallons of waste seawater, heated to 29 degrees warmer than the ambient seawater temperature, into the Pacific Ocean off Malibu every year.

The revised plan would recycle much of that hot water from shipboard machinery into the supercold LNG onboard the ship, but would still dump 61 million gallons of heated water per year into the Pacific. That water could carry unlimited amounts of chlorine and copper, and would still be about 20 degrees hotter than the ocean, environmentalists warned.

“BHP Billiton has made modifications to Cabrillo Port in response to stakeholder comments and in cooperation with regulatory authorities,” said BHPB spokesman Patrick Cassidy, via e-mail, from his Houston office. “This is further evidence that the public hearing process is working.”

But an Environmental Defense Center legal fellow, Amber Tyser, said the latest BHPB change in plans “looks like they are struggling to do anything they can to comply with the state laws that we said they need to comply with.”

Tyser noted that the new EPA rulings show that federal regulators agree with coastal advocates on claims made last year that state water pollution laws must be enforced on Cabrillo Port even though it would sit in federal waters.

“But the proposed permit still would let BHP Billiton discharge more than 60 million gallons per year of water, heated 20 degrees above the ocean temperature, and containing unlimited amounts of chlorine and copper,” she said. “It’s still a bad project in terms of water quality, air pollution, and global warming gases.”

Although BHP Billiton said it was able to reduce the amount of hot water discharges in reaction to local objections, Tyser said the redesign of Cabrillo Port’s engine cooling system this summer “looks like they’re making this up as they go along.” The EDC law office is funded by the California Coastal Protection Network, and has been supported by a $50,000 appropriation from the City of Malibu.

In its findings last week, the EPA proposed approval for Cabrillo Port to use natural gas-fired boilers to raise the supercold LNG temperature by 300 degrees, a process that would emit more than 261 tons of smog-causing chemicals per year just upwind of Malibu and the polluted Los Angeles air basin.
Two competing LNG terminals off Oxnard and Malibu have been announced this year, and those companies said they would use plain air to warm up the LNG in heat exchangers, instead of using Billiton’s pollution-causing boiler technology.

The air exchangers would theoretically generate only pure, distilled water as a byproduct, and coastal activists have said it is unclear why the EPA is not considering that system for Cabrillo Port.

EPA San Francisco is accepting public comments on this latest version of the water discharge permits until Oct. 23. Information about submitting comments is available at http://www.epa.gov/ region9/liq-natl-gas/.

Last week, the state Public Utilities Commission voted to allow foreign natural gas to be sold to California gas customers through the state’s natural gas pipelines.

Smog regulatory agencies like the South Coast Air Quality Management District and California Air Resources Board are worried that natural gas imports will burn hotter than domestic natural gas.

Smog agencies from the Fresno, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles air basins have gone on record as saying they cannot clean up their air if dirtier imported LNG is introduced into their areas.
The AQMD and other agencies have said they may challenge the PUC decision in court on the grounds that it violates federal and state clean air and environmental impact laws.

And in a late development, the California Coastal Protection Network has invited Malibu residents to a 10 a.m. event this Friday at Bluffs Park, where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides will announce that he will veto Cabrillo Port if he defeats incumbent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the November election.

The governor in the past has expressed support for the BHP Billiton venture, then distanced himself from those comments. His campaign press office did not return a phone call Monday.