Cabrillo Port Would Impose 20 Negative Impacts on Local Coast

• Report Says Danger to Whales, Massive Smog and Visual Impact Cannot Be Mitigated

BY HANS LAETZ

Coastal advocates, facing a three-week deadline, are digesting the massive final Environmental Impact Report on the proposed Cabrillo Port liquefied natural gas terminal, released Friday. But headlines are already out around the world reporting that BHP Billiton’s project would impose 20 risky or polluting impacts on the scenic views, air, wild sea life and people of the Malibu region.

“Twenty proposed project impacts have been identified as significant impacts, considered major, permanent, long-term, or short-term impacts under (federal and state laws),” the report says. It calls those negative effects “significant and unavoidable,” and said the problems “would remain after mitigation is applied.”

The massive, three-volume study includes an entire section devoted to answers to the 1400 specific objections to the plant filed by scientists, lawyers and Malibu residents. Among tens of thousands of conclusions, it says experts cannot estimate the likelihood of a major explosion caused by terrorist acts, such as ramming an LNG carrier into a populated area, because the probability of such a terrorist act cannot be calculated.

The study rejects complaints that experts underestimated the size of a potential circular flash-fire coming from a worst case scenario collision of a ship into the tanker, which would be anchored 13.8 miles off the Ventura county line at Malibu’s north end. Consultants have maintained their position that their best guess is that the ensuing “pool fire” would be 14.4 miles across, which would engulf the maritime shipping lanes and extend far beyond the plant’s safety closure zone.

The report’s publication triggers a 70-day series of hearings, votes, and decisions on the proposed industrial addition to Malibu’s coastline. And if the project wins approvals from the Coast Guard, U.S. Department of Commerce, California State Lands Commission and the Coastal Commission, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will have the power to veto the project before May 20.

The report does not take sides in the heated argument over federal smog permits for Cabrillo Port, or whether Cabrillo Port is a part of the Channel Islands exemption to local smog rules, as BHP Billiton claims. Either way, the report concludes the plant’s smog emissions would include nitrogen oxides and petrochemicals at levels that will exceed federal law, despite company plans to reduce smog emissions elsewhere in the state.

Activists have seized on that, saying the law does not allow BHP Billiton to claim to have offset local smog effects by cutting pollutants elsewhere in the state. But the company issued a press release saying the total amount of one type of pollution generated by the plant itself would be less than its emission reductions elsewhere in California.

That calculation does not, however, take into account the pollution caused by LNG tankers steaming up to the terminal, formally called a Floating Regasification and Storage Unit.

The report, posted on the internet Friday morning, concludes that “a number of adverse effects would remain significant and unavoidable. Significant and unavoidable offshore impacts during project operations would be potential public safety impacts from a high-energy marine collision or damage to subsea pipelines; noise impacts to marine animals; marine biology, air quality, and water quality impacts from a significant spill or LNG release from the FSRU or offshore pipelines.”

The report also takes a closer look at two low-income trailer parks in the Oxnard area that will sit on top of a 30-inch high-pressure natural gas line to be installed to feed gas from Cabrillo Port to Los Angeles.

The report sets up one major bone of contention with coastal advocates, who still estimate that opening up Cabrillo Port to imports would add greenhouse gas equal to five percent of California’s existing total discharge. The analysis, however, rejects that argument by only looking at actual discharges at the port itself, instead of the cumulative total caused by compressing the gas and shipping it halfway around the globe.

“The Project would generate emissions of greenhouse gases that would be insignificant alone, but could exacerbate, in combination with existing greenhouse gases, global warming effects,” the report concludes.

The analysis says negative aesthetic, noise, and recreational impacts for boaters traveling near Cabrillo Port will occur, as well as the visual intrusion of an industrial facility into two national parks.

Among other major impacts, the report concludes that commercial and recreational fishing gear could become hung up on, and potentially damage, one or both of the undersea natural gas pipelines. And it says those high-pressure, submerged gaslines coursing across 22 miles of ocean bed could be severed due to a seismic event or undersea landslide.

Every specific written or spoken concern from thousands of Malibu and Oxnard residents over the past three years is addressed in a specific response from consultants working for the state and federal governments. For example, Ventura Congressmember Lois Capps’ concern about the shape and size of the possible explosive vapor cloud is addressed:

“The Independent Risk Assessment determined that the consequences of the worst credible accident involving a vapor cloud fire would be more than 5.7 nautical miles (7.2 highway miles) from shore at the closest point, the maximum distance from the FSRU in any direction that could be affected in the event of an accident. The shape and direction of the affected area would depend on wind conditions and would be more like a cone than a circle, but would not reach the shoreline.”

The report rejects concerns from Malibu residents about the visual impact of the ship, which would be anchored just beyond the shipping lanes used by the container vessels visible most days along the coast.

“From the shoreline, and particularly from higher elevations, the FSRU would be seen but would appear as a thickening on the horizon,” the report says. “Night lighting used during pipeline construction and operations would be visible from the shore and to residents living in the foothills and higher elevation areas in Malibu and from the top of Anacapa Island, thereby altering the nighttime viewshed.”

The report does not mention that a key federal agency, the National Marine Fisheries Service, is currently withholding its input on Cabrillo Port until it gets data about how whales and other protected species will be avoided by LNG tankers, and how continuous, loud noise from the terminal will affect whales. The Coast Guard is required by law to “consult” with the fisheries service, but that agency is balking at what it says is not enough data from BHPB about how Cabrillo Port would scare away or even kill migrating whales.

“A natural gas leak from subsea pipelines could cause morbidity or mortality of marine biota, including fish, invertebrates, seabirds, sea turtles, and marine mammals,” the report says. “Even with the implementation of mitigation measures, impacts on marine biological species from a large accidental release of LNG or fuel would remain significant.”

The report also repeats fisheries service concerns that “construction and operational vessels could collide with marine mammals or sea turtles resting on the ocean surface, resulting in injury or mortality.”

And while the report acknowledges the impact of industrial intrusions into a scenic recreation area, the report does not address the economic impact to whalewatching operations if the leviathans are driven away by the loud LNG boilers.

Lengthy new material in the report about the project’s sound impact on animals is included in new technical studies also unveiled last week. Scientists and lawyers working for the Environmental Defense Center have complained that, although Billion has had months to prepare those studies, coastal advocates have only 21 days to analyze the highly technical new data.

Such analysis on two prior sets of studies uncovered hundreds of purported inaccuracies and errors, lawyers for EDC said, and there is no reason not to expect that this time.

The company refused this week to answer any specific comments about the new report and its 3000 pages of conclusions, but issued a statement saying it was pleased with the results.