Feds Defend LNG Fast Track as Clock Starts
Opponents Dominate First of Three Cabrillo
Port Hearings in Eight Days
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.
