Currently, four terminals exist in the United States: Cove Point, MD, Everett, MA, Calcasieu Parish, LA, and Elba Island, GA. Fifteen are in the proposal stage, and twelve additional in the planning stage.
Recommendations for action regarding Crown Landing are at the end of this article.
DELAWARE COASTAL ZONE ACT
The proposed pier falls under the Coastal Zone Act (CZA), which is administered by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) and under the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) of the U.S. Department of Energy.*
The CZA prohibits the construction of "offshore bulk product transfer facilities" but allows piers for otherwise permissible single manufacturing facilities. BP argued that they fell within this exemption. The Delaware Chapter of the Sierra Club and many other organizations and individuals argued they did not.** DNREC ruled that Crown Landing would be a prohibite. BP appealed that decision to the State Coastal Zone Industrial Control Board, which voted to on March 30, 2005, to support the DNREC position. The ruling may be appealed to the Delaware Superior Court.
FERC’S DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT (DEIS)
FERC issued a DEIS on the Crown Landing Terminal. FERC concluded that if the project is constructed and operated in accordance with the developers’ and FERC’s proposed and recommended mitigation measures, the proposed facilities would have limited adverse environmental impact. The public comment period ends on April 18, 2005.
The DEIS does not address what the impacts may be on rail or vehicular traffic if restrictions like those used in Boston Harbor when LNG carriers enter are imposed on us.
The DEIS states that about 3,200 to 3,300 vessels traverse the Bay and River annually. Of those, about 2,000 are in foreign trade or are over 100 tons, and, therefore, are under Coast Guard jurisdiction and must have a pilot. That averages 5.5 per day of the larger vessels, some share of which would have a safety zone requirement of 1,000 yards before and after, and 500 yards of either side. To this traffic load would be added three LNG carriers per week taking 5.5 hours per trip up and 24 hours turn around.
The DEIS contains a brief discussion of possible collision damage, estimating "striking speed to penetrate the cargo tanks of an LNG ship for a range of potential collision angles." For an angle of impact of greater than 60 degrees the speed is between 3 and 4.5 knots.
The DEIS reviewed some alternative sites, most particularly Baltimore and the existing terminal at Cove Point, Maryland. The essential difference between the alternatives is pipeline costs. The document identified the host of terminal proposals around the nation. The major problem in this area is that each terminal proposal is evaluated on its own, although the system operates nationwide.
The document states that it would take about 5.5 hours for a vessel to transit up the Delaware Bay and River to the proposed terminal, and concludes that there will be minimal impact on shipping and boating in the immediate vicinity of the terminal because the Delaware is wide. The River and Bay may be wide, but the channel has a fixed, narrow width, a fact that should be considered more thoroughly in the analysis. Also, it is noted that the Bay is wide near the anchorage where petroleum tankers offload into lighters and near where the Cape May–Lewes Ferry crosses the Bay, but the navigation channel is the same width throughout and is near the naturally deep channel where the tankers offload, so there could be spatial–temporal conflicts.
It is not clear from the document how commercial and recreational fishing boats would be affected by the safety measures. If the objective of the safety measures is to keep a terrorist from blowing up an LNG carrier vessel, then small boats must be kept far enough away from the carrier vessels so the Coast Guard could interdict them prior to an attack. This would likely impact the fishing patterns of commercial and recreational vessels.
Cost allocation is not addressed. Are the taxpayers expected to pay for the costs incurred by the Coast Guard? Who is to bear the costs incurred by commercial barges, commercial shipping vessels, and commercial and recreational fishing boats as a result of the security measures?
There was no mention of anything impacting Delaware communities in the Environmental Justice discussion of the DEIS, even though there are minorities resident in Port Penn through Claymont, which are the communities that the DEIS mentioned were subject to harm from accidents involving the ships.
The Environmental Justice section concluded, in part, "In summary, we do not believe…the proposed project would result in disproportionate adverse impacts on environmental justice communities. The project…with the use of appropriate mitigation measures, would not result in significant adverse impacts on the local environment and natural resources. Although some of the neighborhoods crossed by the proposed pipeline route have lower incomes than average, the potential impacts described above would affect all of the communities crossed by the pipeline, and would not disproportionately impact only the environmental justice areas." That is probably an accurate statement, but it is not clear that the statement fulfills the notion of environmental justice. Would not environmental justice include the notion that the proponents of the projects and the preparers of the DEIS should exercise extraordinary care in minority areas to assure that the interests of the residents of those communities are adequately addressed in the process.
Special Interest Areas
The DEIS recognizes the heronry on Pea Patch Island as a special interest area. However, there is no assessment of what could happen if there were an accidental release of LNG.
No assessment of impacts on the habits and habitats of migratory waterfowl from a catastrophic LNG leak while transiting the Bay and River, that is, along Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge and state wildlife areas south of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, is included in the DEIS. Indeed, other than the discussion of the heronry and the separate Section 7 consultation on Atlantic sturgeon, there is a minimal discussion on possible impacts on wildlife and habitat.
There is no adequate discussion of damage from an accidental release to the several landfills along the River channel at Pigeon Point and Cherry Island or to the petrochemical facilities at Delaware City and Wilmington, including the dioxin-laden area adjacent to the channel in northern Wilmington.
What are the effects on Delaware’s tourist industry and property values as a result of the Delaware River being the transit route for LNG, especially if an accident occurred elsewhere and the adequacy of public safety became a question because of the terminal’s proposed location?
Comments On The Overall DEIS
The major flaw of the DEIS is the analytical model that is based on the theory that if there is a low probability of an LNG spill, then there is a low probability of the negative impacts that could result from a spill, so only the best-case scenario is evaluated. The analysis of possible impacts is incomplete and unacceptable if the consequences of the low-probability events are not also evaluated.
The hazard zones defined in the DEIS are based on the Sandia report, but that report also did not evaluate worst-case scenarios because the scenario of an entire LNG carrier vessel breaching has not even been modeled. The modeling reported in the Sandia document is based on extremely small-scale actual experiments. Since no one would conceive of blowing up an LNG vessel on purpose to see what would happen, in the absence of anything approaching empirical data, it seems prudent to include a stringent evaluation of worst-case scenario impacts.
Given all of the unknowns, the following statements from the DEIS are incredible: "The transit within the navigation channel would pass by Delaware City, New Castle, Wilmington, and Claymont, Delaware and Pennsville and Penns Grove, New Jersey. Some areas of development along the shoreline in these communities could be within a potential hazard area during the LNG vessel transit. Assuming an LNG ship would transit the Delaware River at approximately 11 knots, the adjacent communities would be exposed to a potential transient hazard for an estimated 8 minutes. In addition, a temporary hazard would exist around the ship unloading facility during part of the 16- to 17-hour period when the LNG ship is at the dock and unloading cargo. The operational restrictions to be imposed by the Delaware River pilots on LNG vessel movements through this area, as well as the requirements that the Coast Guard would impose in its operating plan would minimize the possibility of a hazardous event occurring along the vessel transit."
Why locate an LNG terminal in a populous area? Are citizens expendable in the name of profits?
ACTION
Kudos. Senators Biden and Carper and Congressman Castle have cosigned a letter to FERC that stated, in part: "Although FERC has federal authority to consider siting LNG terminals, there are limits to its jurisdiction over the states with federally approved coastal zone management programs. In the past, FERC, under the guidance of Section 307 of the federal CZMA of 1972, acknowledged that federally authorized projects affecting a state's coastal zone must be consistent with the state's Coastal Zone Management Plan. We support this application of the CZMA, and we strongly oppose any expansion of FERC's authority in this area, or any measure or measures that would allow FERC to preempt a state's right in protecting sensitive environmental areas under the authority of the federal CZMA, the state's coastal zone management plan or its own CZA."
You are urged to contact Senators Biden and Carper and Congressman Castle, thank them for their support thus far in this matter, and request that they remain vigilant against any attempts by the Federal Government, either administratively or through Congressional action, to usurp State authority. You are also urged to contact Governor Minner and members of the General Assembly from your area to advise them of your concerns about this project and your opposition to it.
* The relevant provisions of the CZA were presented in the last edition of this newsletter (it can be read on the website of the Delaware Chapter of the Sierra Club (delaware.sierraclub.org) or in the Delaware Code online (www.delregs.state.de.us/html/delcode).
**The Chapter’s letter to Secretary Hughes on the Status Decision, along with the legal memorandum from the Mid-Atlantic Environmental Law Center that accompanied it and a 1971 letter from the Delaware Attorney General dealing with a similar project that was a attachment to the legal memorandum are all on the home page of the Chapter’s web site.