Feds Defend LNG Fast Track as Clock Starts

Opponents Dominate First of Three Cabrillo Port Hearings in Eight Days

By Hans Laetz

In an unusual burst of anger from a federal official, a U.S. Maritime Administration official lashed out against a coastal activist who had just accused his agency of rushing a decision on the BHP Billiton liquefied natural gas terminal.

The tempers flared Wednesday night at the first of three public hearings in eight days on the BHP Cabrillo Port LNG terminal.

The dramatic exchange was sparked when coastal advocate Susan Jordan charged that federal agencies were deliberately rushing the decision-making process by requiring three public hearings be held within eight days.

As she ran out of her allotted time, Jordan said California is “captive to federal efforts to fast-track this project. In my humble opinion, holding this hearing tonight is a grave disservice, and your agency owes an apology to the people in this room.”

Keith Lesnick, the Deepwater Ports program director for MARAD, pointed his finger at Jordan as she walked away: “Just a minute. I am offended that you would stand there and say that Maritime and the Coast Guard would have scheduled it this way. The state agencies were all in on this.”

“Now you wait a minute,” Jordan said as she took the podium. “I listened to you and now you listen to me. I have been talking to all the state agencies and they all have said you rushed them into this.”

Lesnick interrupted Jordan, and said he disagreed.

Jordan directs the California Coastal Protection Network, the group coordinating the legal battle against the proposed $800 million terminal. The City of Malibu has chipped in $50,000 to that fight.

The fireworks enlivened the only public hearing that the Coast Guard and Maritime Administration will hold on the controversial request by Australian energy company BHP Billiton to station a floating LNG terminal 13.8 miles off the coast at Malibu’s north end. More than 40 persons spoke at the hearing attended by close to 250 people that served as a warm-up to Monday’s key vote by the California State Lands Commission, the only state agency with final power to approve or deny the project.

Two Malibu City Council members, Andy Stern and Pamela Conley Ulich, told the federal officials that the communities of Malibu and Oxnard are united in opposing the LNG port.

“I get accused of being a NIMBY,” Stern said, “but I want to tell you something, this is the first time that the city councils of Malibu and Oxnard have ever stood united on any one thing.” The Port Hueneme City Council, Ventura County Air Pollution Control District and the Ventura County Board of Supervisors have also unanimously taken anti-Cabrillo Port stands.

Tim Riley, an anti-LNG activist from Oxnard Shores, noted that “every single elected public official” who testified, spoke against the project. “That’s what so remarkable, the hardworking blue collars are agreeing with the rich and famous,” he said.

Six speakers supported the BHP Billiton plan. Don Facciano, president of the Ventura County Taxpayers Association, called the LNG port and the clean energy it would import “a win-win for both the taxpayers of Ventura County and all of California as well. We all remember the energy crisis of a few years ago, not only the embarrassment but the fact that the lights went out and then the taxpayers were forced to foot the bill.”

Hank Locayo, a senior activist who has written numerous newspaper commentaries favoring the project, said it was important for seniors as well as the small businesses that drive California’s economy.

And Glenn Hening, a former Malibu resident who is now campaigning for the LNG plant, said federal officials believe it would be safe. “If we can’t trust the Coast Guard and the Maritime Administration, then...all of us should just stay home because it would be too dangerous to go outside our homes.”

More typical were comments such as those by Lucille Keller, a longtime Malibu activist who said the floating terminal “is an experimental and potentially-deadly technology, and should not be approved unless there is established science to support BHP safety claims.”

Larry Godwin, a retired Point Mugu Navy engineer, said a recent Congressional study that is not mentioned in the project’s environmental reports makes that evaluation invalid. “There is no doubt that the computer-generated safety zones in the report are fabricated and cannot be used to judge the safety zones for the general public,” Godwin said. “There is no doubt that the worst case scenario will happen at some time, and there must be no compromise for the public safety.”

Mike Stubblefield, who lives near Oxnard, also noted that the Coast Guard wrote and publicly released a 168-page safety study for a floating LNG plant proposed for Long Island Sound, but will not do the same for Cabrillo Port. The Coast Guard admitted in its East Coast study that it does not have enough people or ships to guard that terminal.

“This is an outrageous double standard that our community will not accept,” he said.

No employee of BHP Billiton spoke at the meeting, and a local camera crew hired by the company recorded public comments. A small group of BHP Billiton officials watched from the back of the hall, including Rebecca McDonald, London-based president of the company’s gas and oil division and a former high-ranking Enron official.

In an interview, McDonald said she was confident that the company would be able to build an LNG terminal that meets the “Best Available Control Technology” standard for its exhaust, a key matter that might scuttle the project if federal regulators impose tight air quality standards.

Activists said they are keeping their powder dry for next Monday’s State Lands Commission hearing, when a vote will be taken.

Testimony from the first hearing will result in federal officials announcing a decision within 90 days.