Congress Holds Hearings on LNG Safety Shortcomings

• Members Tell Coast Guard It Doesn’t Have Enough Ships or Crew to Guard Terminals

BY HANS LAETZ

Some members of Congress from both sides of the aisle are unhappy with Coast Guard answers about the agency’s ability to prevent terrorism at the nation’s planned 30 or so liquefied natural gas terminals. And at a Washington hearing Wednesday, March 21, that unhappiness went public.

The congressional hearing was three weeks before regulators in California are to take a key vote on the BHP Billiton proposal to build an LNG terminal near Malibu. Some coastal residents oppose the project, and the possibility of a terrorist attack or accident at the floating gas terminal is a major objection to them.

A General Accounting Office report issued a week ago said not enough research has been done on the effects of a leak, spill or sabotage on LNG ships.

The Congressional hearing last week gave representatives an opportunity to ask federal agencies about the safety of the rapidly expanding LNG import industry. It was accompanied by a closed-door session on terrorism and LNG facilities that included secret briefing materials.

“Coast Guard assets are aging by the day, and I am concerned about whether or not the Coast Guard has the assets to meet this growing mission,” said Committee Chair Bennie Thompson, D-Louisiana.

Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican whose district might play host to a floating offshore LNG terminal, asked a Coast Guard rear admiral if the Coast Guard has enough people and ships to guard LNG vessels, which federal officials say are possible terrorism targets.

At the hearing, which was webcast, Rear Admiral Brian Salerno told Shays “the question of resources is being looked at carefully.”

“Isn’t the honest answer to that question ‘no’?” Shays asked.

Salerno paused, looked at his notes, and replied, “That’s on the table.”

“I think that’s a punt,” Shays snapped.

Coast Guard officials in New York have said they would need one ship and 70 additional crewmembers for security at Broadwater, a floating LNG terminal very similar in concept to the BHP Billiton proposal for an unloading, processing and storage tank facility 13.8 miles off the Malibu coast.

Coast Guard officials have not prepared a similar Waterways Suitability Assessment for Cabrillo Port, the BHP Billiton project proposed for coastal Malibu, because it is not within a harbor or bay, like the Broadwater project.

The Coast Guard air and sea fleet is in a state of distress right now, with a half dozen ships showing hull cracks after a modernization program failed, leaving the ships and cutters unsafe and unusable. New helicopters are behind schedule and over budget, and the new GAO report warns that the Coast Guard may not be equipped to handle the task of guarding five existing LNG terminals, 15 LNG terminals in the permitting process, and another 25 or so proposed.

Thompson said he realized Coast Guard officials are attempting to fix the problems, “but I want to know if this course correction will occur before the additional LNG facilities come on line.”

Thompson said he was puzzled by the Coast Guard’s inability to say right now if it has enough staff. “Very rarely do I find a (Congressional) committee offering to help, and the offer is declined,” he said.

Some California decision-makers in behind-the-scenes meetings with anti-LNG activists have reportedly raised the possibility of an LNG tanker being hijacked “and rammed into Santa Monica.”

At last Wednesday’s hearing, an official with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission downplayed the dangers of a terrorist attack, saying the worst-case scenario imaginable is a “pool fire” of spilled LNG that would burn for a half hour. “If you read the popular press, it (the danger) is overblown,” said J. Mark Robinson, FERC’s director of energy projects.

“What they are talking about is second degree burns on exposed skin one mile away if you hold your arm out for a minute,” he told the committee. “If you just move away within 20-to-30 seconds, you won’t have a burn.”

In a 2005 report, the institute said the hijacking and destruction of an LNG tanker was unimaginable in a pre-9/11 world. “The attack on the U.S.S. Cole (in 2002) by al-Qaeda operatives in the harbor in Aden, Yemen changed all that.”

Using a small inflatable boat loaded with explosives, the attackers were able to blow a 40x60-foot hole in the side of the armored ship, inflicting heavy damage both above and largely below the waterline.

“Seventeen Navy personnel were killed and 36 injured in the attack,” the report continued. “Shortly thereafter, a small boat laden with explosives attacked the French tanker Limburg at Ash Shihr, Yemen.”

In that attack, both the inner and outer hulls of the double-hulled ship were penetrated, and damage extended, according to the captain, seven or eight meters into the cargo hold, which was filled with crude oil.