Attorney General Patrick Lynch testifies before the first hearing of a special Senate Task Force on LNG.
STATE HOUSE – Picture Jamestown Harbor shut down; the Pell Bridge cleared of vehicular traffic; and armed security forces shutting down three-mile swaths of Narragansett Bay without warning. Now picture that happening twice a week, and you get a sense of what brought Attorney General Patrick Lynch to testify before the first hearing of a special Senate LNG Task Force on Tuesday.
“Just stand at Ocean Cliff and look out at Jamestown,” Lynch told task force members on Tuesday, and imagine the entire East Passage in a virtual lockdown.
That would be the case dozens of times every year should a proposal by Weaver’s Cove Energy LLCÂ to construct a liquefied natural gas terminal in the middle of Mount Hope Bay receive federal approval.
An LNG tanker is guided into Boston Harbor. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Public Affairs Specialist 3rd Class Kelly Newlin)
Lynch, who has been at the forefront of the LNG battle for the past six years, urged lawmakers to take whatever steps they can in opposing Weaver’s Cove’s efforts.
When Lynch first considered the implications of bringing LNG into Rhode Island, he said “I thought Boston is a bigger city… and if they can do it, we could do it.”
But all that changed after an eye-opening trip to Boston a number of years back to observe an incoming LNG tanker. “I watched Logan Airport close down, watched the Tobin Bridge close down and saw it go into harbor,” he said.
The trip into the wide mouth of Boston Harbor, Lynch said, is a lot different than the route into Mount Hope Bay.
Holding up a graphics showing both the federally-mandated exclusion zone, and the potential for devastation should an accident or attack occur, Lynch was emphatic in his opposition to bringing LNG tankers up the narrow confines of Narragansett Bay.
“When you take the ship that now in this adjusted application that has been submitted…it has to cut through 15 different communities,” he added. “Even if we assume that no devestation occurs, the burden put on the state and the respective cities and towns is enourmous financially.”
Think of it, he said, “You have a ship that is 900-feet long” and a federal exclusion zone 1,500 yards on either of side, 2 miles in front, and one mile in back. “You then have to extend that zone where no life, no ship, no person, can be in the water in that zone, and wherever that zone touches land, foot patrols need to be in place.”
And while there has been some discussion between Weaver’s Cove and the state to help differ costs for such patrols, Lynch said that he has doubts as to just how long those payments would continue.
His skepticism is based, in part, on past dealings with Weaver’s Cove. When the proposal was first submitted, Lynch said, he was told that the tankers would come in the winter, and they would come at night. It wasn’t until Weaver’s Cove filed their official application that it was revealed that the tankers couldn’t come in at night due to security concerns, and that they would be needed year round.
He also noted that despite assertions by the company to the contrary, a federal exclusion zone would be required both on the way in and on the way out. And, “because of security issues, there can be no forewarning” of when a tanker is due in.
That means, recreational boaters, regattas, cruise ships, all would be restricted with little notice by armed patrol boats.
Such regular disruption to the bay, he said, could be disasterous economically, according to Lynch, and any jobs created by the construction or operation of the LNG terminal, would be negligible compared to the jobs that would be lost.
“In the long view I’m concerned that the jobs that are created here are going to be held by engineers that are brought in from a ship from Trinidad after the facility is built,” Lynch said.
Sharing Lynch’s concerns was W. Michael Sullivan, director of the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM). Testifying just after the Attorney General, Sullivan updated task force members of the ongoing legal action take by his agency against Weaver’s Cove.
Currently, he said, there are two cases still pending before the courts which could derail efforts to bring the volatile fuel source into Narragansett Bay.
Sullivan also echoed Lynch’s concerns over safety, security, and the impact that the tankers would have on the bay, noting that accommodating the presence of LNG tankers would require a tripling of resources currently assigned to his agency. He also said that DEM was planning on filing a complaint related to a Coast Guard letter that effectively approved Weaver’s Cove’s so-called “off-shore” berthing station.
“We do not feel that the opinion was objectively written,” Sullivan said. “We feel there are a number of lapses of judgment in that letter.”
FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, still needs to convene hearings to give a final ruling on Weaver’s Cove’s application to locate its proposed facility in Mount Hope Bay, but if approved, company officials say that the facility could be ready to receive deliveries as soon as 2015. Those hearings, which will be open to the public, are expected to take place some time in the next few months.
The next meeting of the Senate LNG Task Force is scheduled for Feb. 11, when Save The Bay, CRMC, and the RI Saltwater Anglers Association, have been invited to speak.
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Newport, RI
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Thank you, Mr. Lynch. Let’s keep up the pressure to make sure the LNG terminal is never built.