Malibu Officials and Activists Challenge Procedures at First Hearing on OceanWay LNG Proposal

• Congressional Representative for Project Area Says Terminal Would Be a Prime Terrorist Target •

BY HANS LAETZ

Polite anger was simmering at a Wednesday night hearing on a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal 21 miles off Malibu, when a City of Los Angeles official refused to disclose information about how L.A. City Hall will make its decision on the controversial proposal.

Two Malibu City Council members started the session by publicly criticizing an L.A. City Department of Public Works official for not telling anyone in Malibu about the unexpectedly scheduled hearing, and for not holding one in Malibu, the closest city to the offshore project.

The Los Angeles procedure is of key importance, as that city holds veto power over “OceanWay,” a proposed LNG terminal 21 miles south of Point Dume. Woodside Natural Gas wants to park a pair of ships at the site and use a regasification process to reheat LNG and push it through pipes ashore across 29 miles of ocean bottom, Dockweiler Beach, City of L.A. streets and Los Angeles International Airport property.

Controversy continued throughout the four-hour session attended by more than 200 people from as far away as Ventura, Orange County and San Fernando who offered suggestions on which environmental issues should be considered as the proposal is evaluated.

Although critics of the project dominated the hearing by a 4-1 margin, three neighborhood activists from the LAX area, where the gas pipeline will come ashore, endorsed it. Union officials representing pipefitters, ironworkers, maritime workers and sea captains also spoke on behalf of Woodside’s proposed OceanWay LNG terminal.

KEY CONCERNS

A field representative for Rep. Jane Harmon, D-Redondo Beach, blasted the proposed LNG import terminal, which would sit next to LAX, as “an attractive target to terrorists.” Harmon chairs the House Subcommittee on Intelligence and Terrorism Risk Assessment, and represents the LAX area in Congress.

“In my view,” she wrote in comments read into the record, “locating a complex network of LNG pipelines under parts of LAX would be tantamount to adding lighter fluid to a barbeque, at what experts agree is the top terrorist target in California.”

Malibu LNG activist Natalie Soloway noted that, unlike BHP’s Cabrillo Port, the Woodside “OceanWay" project is an open port. “Woodside can bring gas in from Indonesia, Malaysia, or from Russia, where there are very few environmental standards.”

Soloway noted that gas from those nations “burns hotter than our domestic gas and is much more corrosive to the pipelines. It will create problems with the infrastructure all the way down to the individuals’ gas gauges.”

Other objections to the proposed port in 3000 feet of water include environmentalists’ concerns about LNG ships fatally striking whales, and worries that crude oil tankers from a nearby Chevron deepwater port might again drag their anchor and collide with an LNG ship.

A large contingent of Oxnard and Ventura residents attended the meeting, and said the lessons from the four-year battle over BHP Billiton’s Malibu terminal are not forgotten. “I feel like we are talking to drug dealers, we are addicted to imported oil and these people all have nice smiling faces and they want to sell us more,” said Oxnard resident Jim Hensley.

“I am proud of my fellow residents from Ventura County,” said Alan Sanders of Port Hueneme. “We learned that LNG was wrong in our backyard, and it is wrong here.”

Favoring the project was Mike Arias, president of the Westchester-Playa Del Rey neighborhood council. “The impact to us as consumers will be positive,” he said, “as consumers can take advantage of additional sources of natural gas.”

“The ability to have clean fuel delivered to us via pipeline from 28 miles off our shore—that’s real progress,” enthused Art Pulaski from the California Labor Federation. “And it will provide jobs for the people who create prosperity in this state.”

CITY STONEWALLING

The Los Angeles City project manager, Linda Moore, startled the Coast Guard official moderating the meeting when she said, “I would prefer not to [explain just how the city will handle its decision-making process].”

“I can’t give you an answer to that question, it’s just too complex to describe,” she told a clutch of Malibu and Oxnard residents after the hearing. “I am not in a position to discuss every step of the project.”

Malibu residents, however, continued to press Moore about who at the City of Los Angeles will make the final determinations on the LNG project, which is six miles closer to Malibu than to L.A. “I would recommend that you ask that question in a letter to the docket,” she said, referring to the federal computerized list of public documents.

One Malibuite replied that the docket is basically an electronic file cabinet incapable of responding to inquiries and that questions about how the City of Los Angeles functions should be answered at what was billed as an informational meeting. But Moore said nothing.

Left unclear is who at the City of L.A. will decide on whether to allow Woodside to bring its proposed natural gas pipeline ashore across city-owned beaches, airport property and streets. The L.A. City charter grants wide powers to semi-autonomous boards like the Board of Public Works, but Moore would not say whether that board or the city council would have final say on any or all of the proposal’s numerous aspects.

Earlier in the session, Malibu Mayor Pro Tem Pamela Conley Ulich angrily told Moore that L.A. was “making this process so cumbersome and difficult.” Conley Ulich noted that Moore had refused to make the City of Malibu’s comments a part of the official docket, even though L.A. is obligated to do so under the federal Deepwater Ports Act.

“What’s going on here, what are you afraid of?” Conley Ulich asked Moore.

Again, the L.A. official did not answer.

“I long for the BHP Billiton days, when at least we had the courtesy and respect to have local hearings,” said Councilmember Andy Stern. “We deserve another public hearing, and we deserve it in Malibu.”

Malibu city officials complained that the meeting was not advertised locally, that the city was not formally notified even though it is the closest land to the project, and that they did not know about it until a Malibu Surfside News reporter asked them if they were planning to attend.

Coast Guard officials stressed during the meeting that public comments can be made in writing, either by U.S. Mail, or by filling out a form on the docket website. But officials also noted that the docket is about to be taken offline for major retooling, and therefore extended the electronic filing deadline to Oct. 15.

Activists noted that the public is expected to comment on a 5721-page application that was released without notice eight days ago. Environmental activist Marcia Hanscom asked that the comment period be expanded to 90 days but received no response.

One surprise came near the end of the meeting, when Keith Lesnick, the director of deepwater ports for the federal Maritime Administration, revealed that the BHP Billiton project off Malibu would have faced a federal veto had the state of California not killed it last April.

“I can tell you now, that if the BHP process had ever gotten to the Maritime Administrator, it would have been denied,” Lesnick said at the Wednesday hearing.