Malibu Officials Challenge Procedures at First OceanWay Hearing

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

BY HANS LAETZ

Polite anger was simmering at a hearing last week on a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal 21 miles off Malibu, when the City of Los Angeles was blasted by two Malibu City Council members for ignoring the concerns of residents in Malibu, the closest city to the offshore project.

Mayor Pro Tem Pamela Conley Ulich and Councilmember Andy Stern were again rebuffed in efforts to have the federal government and Los Angeles schedule a meeting in Malibu to scope out the environmental criteria for “OceanWay,” a proposed LNG terminal 21 miles south of Point Dume.

Woodside Natural Gas wants to position a pair of ships at the Santa Monica Bay site, reheat LNG and push it through pipes across 29 miles of ocean bottom and then ashore under Dockweiler Beach, City of L.A. streets and Los Angeles International Airport.

The four-hour session was 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.

A field representative for Rep. Jane Harman, D-El Segundo, blasted the proposed LNG import terminal, which would sit next to LAX, as “an attractive target to terrorists.” Harman 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 barbecue, at what experts agree is the top terrorist target in California.”

More key opposition surfaced at the meeting from L.A. City Councilmember Bill Rosendahl who represents the LAX area. He issued a statement that Woodside’s terminal potentially poses “serious environmental, health and safety risks for the community at large, and is an unfair imposition on nearby residents.”

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.”

Earlier in the session, Malibu Mayor Pro Tem Pamela Conley Ulich angrily told L.A. city project manager Linda 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.

The L.A. official did not answer, and also refused to explain just who exactly at the City of Los Angeles is responsible for decision-making in the Woodside matter, including the decision not to have a hearing in Malibu (see accompanying article).

“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.