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Feds: More studies needed on LNG plan
by lisa arsenault
STAFF WRITER
The National Marine Fisheries Service says there should be
more studies on the impact of an offshore liquefied natural
gas terminal on marine life off Gloucester before federal regulators
accept an application by a company.
A letter from the National Marine Fisheries Services, signed by director William
Hogarth, says an LNG facility proposed by Tractebel LNG North America could disturb
marine life by:
• Sucking la .sea life through water intake pipes on the tankers;
• Causing vibrations during construction
The National Marine Fisheries
.-• ' "> ,•' •
Service says pile driving during
installation of the buoys could
injure or kill fish with explosions
and sound waves.
and operation that could disturb the Stellwa-gen Bank National Marine Sanctuary;
» Discharging cooler water containing brine and biocides that could kill
plankton.
In the letter, Hogarth calls for more studies on the environmental impacts of
seawater pumped on and off the tankers at 39.58 million gallons per day. The
service also wants to know the effects on the Stellwagen Bank National Marine
Sanctuary and how vessel traffic would affect endangered animals like' whales
and sea turtles.
The letter was sent last month to the Coast Guard commander, Mark Prescott, chief
of the Deepwater Ports Standards Division.
The Deepwater Port Act is a federal law ;that provides the framework for handling
FROM PA
LNG: NMFS finds fault with terminal
• Continued from Page Al •
applications for offshore LNG terminals.
As part of the review process for applications, many different branches of
the federal government — including the National Marine Fisheries
Service — review the project plans and make recommendations.
The service is a branch of the federal government under the United States
Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
It is the governing body charged with protecting the nation's oceans and ocean
resources — including regulating the commercial fishing industry.
Tractebel spokeswoman Julie Vitek said the company plans to take into consideration
all of the recommendations.
"Our application was four volumes and 3,000 pages," she said. "We
fully expected this process would be an interactive one that agencies would respond
for further requests for information."
Gloucester Daily Times, 4/22/05
Two Texas companies, Exceler-ate Energy and Tractebel North America, hope
to build LNG termi-
nals off Gloucester. They say New England must do something to increase
the supply of natural gas coming into the region in the next decade or face
crippling shortages.
The proposed LNG terminals would pump roughly 400 million cubic feet of natural
gas a day into pipelines that are already in use.
The terminals would require putting in two underwater buoys southeast of Eastern
Point in a triangle bordered by the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary,
the Massachusetts Bay disposal site and shipping lanes to Boston. LNG tankers
would dock at the underwater buoys, vaporize the liquefied natural
gas and offload it into a pipeline buried in the ocean floor.
But the proposals have been widely opposed by Gloucester political and
fishing industry leaders due to fears that the docking facilities would
disturb fish habitats and force more fishing ground closures in areas
valuable to Gloiices-ter's dayboat fleet.
The.National Marine Fisheries Service said pile driving during installation
of the buoys could injure or kill fish with explosions and sound waves.
Yibrations from the construction and opera-
tion could also cause toxic mate-, rials from the nearby Massachusetts
Bay disposal site to drift into the sanctuary and harm marine resources
there, the letter said.
. The effect fuel oils will have on
plankton is a worry because
whales feed on it, the fisheries ser
vice said. That's partly why
Gloucester's Whale Center of New
England opposes the: LNG termi
nals •
Construction, tankers and noise could hurt the phytoplankton population
and drive whales away, said Mason Weinrich, director and chief scientist for
the Whale Center of New England. '
Excelerate Energy has not filed its application with federal regulators
yet and the National Marine Fisheries Service has not issued a similar letter
of recommendations for that project, Excelerate spokesman Ddug Pizzi
said.
Mayor John Bell said he is glad the National Marine Fisheries Service
took the time to carefully review the Tractebel project.
"They did a great job," he said.
"I'm also really glad to see the
agency weighed in as early as it
did." A
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