Key LNG Hearings Begin Wednesday

• Three Sessions in Eight-Day Span

BY HANS LAETZ

The first of three public hearings on the liquefied natural gas terminal proposed for 13.8 miles off Malibu is next Wednesday in Oxnard. But local anti-LNG activists say they expect the bigger turnout five days later—April 9—when the California State Lands Commission holds its hearing and then takes a key vote.

“The State Lands Commission is a very big deal, and that is where we are going to see the largest number of community members,” said Owen Bailey, an organizer for Coastal Advocates, the Malibu and Oxnard-based group of anti-LNG activists.

At issue are the various permits and licenses for the $800 million project that the Australian energy and mining company BHP Billiton wants to anchor on the coastal horizon southwest of Malibu. Dubbed “Cabrillo Port,” the project would import, process and store natural gas in a 14-story high permanently-anchored ship topped with three storage domes.

The company and its supporters say the Malibu facility would ease America’s short-term shortage of clean-burning natural gas. Cabrillo Port, they say, is far enough offshore to minimize any slight danger from terrorist attacks or accidents, which federal experts said would cause a flash-fire possibly extending 7.2 miles out in all directions.

The Ventura County and state Chambers of Commerce and U.S. maritime unions have vigorously championed the project, which they say would provide jobs. BHP Billiton has also said California’s air would be cleaner if Cabrillo Port is built than if it is not.

Opponents say the need for importing more fossil fuels from foreign nations is overstated, and would be a politically unwise move. They have attacked Cabrillo Port’s proposed smog emissions, which would add more than 480 tons of smog-causing chemicals to the atmosphere .

Opponents also question the company’s studies on the dangers of an explosion or fire at the ship. They are bolstered by a federal study released this month that says existing safety studies are based on estimates and computer projections that may be inaccurate.

At Wednesday’s hearing, the U.S. Coast Guard will take testimony beginning at 5 p.m. There’s an open house between 3 and 4:30 p,m, No decision will be made for up to 90 days, spokesman Ray Martin said. Although the hearing is slated to end at 8 p.m., Martin said, “We plan on staying there until every single person has had his or her opportunity to say what it is they have to say.”

The attorney coordinating anti-LNG legal arguments said most of the specific criticisms of Cabrillo Port will be delivered to the State Lands Commission when it meets April 9, also in Oxnard. At the Coast Guard hearing, “We’ll express how dysfunctional the whole Deepwater Ports Act process is,” said Linda Krop, lead attorney for the Environmental Defense Center.

“It would have been much more appropriate for the Coast Guard to have its hearing on this after the state had made its decision on all the environmental impacts,” she said.

The recent GAO study shows that the Coast Guard “is not adequately prepared to ensure the safety and liability of this port against terrorists, sabotage or accidents,” she said.

Requests for comment from BHP Billiton officials in Oxnard and Houston went unanswered. A company public relations agent in Ventura did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

Following the Coast Guard and State Lands Commissions hearings, the California Coastal Commission will take public testimony and vote on April 12 on the issue of Cabrillo Port’s compliance with the Coastal Zone Management Act. That federal law allows California to manage its coastline, and authorizes the CCC to reject a project that does not comply with its interpretation of the federal act.

Coastal Commission officials have said, however, that their federal counterparts and BHP Billiton are not in accordance on how much power the Coastal Commission has to possibly reject Cabrillo Port.

After all that, the LNG terminal must still get approval from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by the middle of May.

One still unresolved issue is the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which is still determining if Cabrillo Port can be built under U.S. and Ventura County smog rules. White House interference on behalf of BHP Billiton prompted both houses of Congress to open informal investigations into an apparent EPA flip-flop on the issue that benefited BHPB.