Transporting LNG via trucks or trains carries unacceptable risks

FROM AN ARTICLE BY JON HURDLE, NEW JERSEY SPOTLIGHT, MARCH 4, 2020

Trial-like proceeding will hear all sides and recommend whether to uphold Delaware River Basin Commission’s approval.

The Delaware River Basin Commission has set up a quasi-judicial hearing on a controversial plan to build New Jersey’s first liquefied natural gas export terminal on the Delaware River, giving opponents a high-profile opportunity to reargue their case almost a year after the project was approved by the interstate water regulator.

The DRBC said the hearing, due to start on April 15 in Mercerville, will include testimony by the project’s developer, Delaware River Partners (DRP) as well as commission staff, and the environmental group Delaware Riverkeeper Network (DRN), which opposes the project and called last July for a rehearing.

“This announcement is a stunning admission that the DRBC failed to provide a full or fair opportunity for public comment before approving the Gibbstown Logistics LNG export facility,” said Delaware Riverkeeper Network leader Maya van Rossum, in a statement.

The “adjudicatory hearing,” a trial-like proceeding that will include direct- and cross-examination of witnesses by all sides, will take place before a hearing officer — an official from the Pennsylvania Department of State — who will later recommend to the commission whether to uphold or reject its approval of the project last June. The commission will be under no obligation to accept the recommendation.

Some seats will be made available for the public to attend the hearing but the public will not be allowed to speak, the DRBC said.

Former DuPont site in Gloucester County, NJ

Delaware Riverkeeper Network previously argued that the commission didn’t allow nearly enough time for the public to comment on the proposal, which would build a 43-feet deep berth on a former DuPont site at Gibbstown on the Delaware River in Gloucester County. The project would make space for two oceangoing tankers to ship LNG that would be carried by rail from the gas-rich reserves of the Marcellus Shale in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Under an earlier plan, the fuel was to be shipped to Gibbstown in hundreds of trucks. But in December, the federal pipeline regulator, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, approved the use of trains to carry LNG from Wyalusing, PA to Gibbstown, the first route in the nation where shipment of LNG by rail would be allowed. It is unclear whether there will be any truck shipments.

Other fuels that would be shipped via the $95 million dock include butane, ethane, propane and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). There will be no bulk storage and no manufacturing of any of the liquids at the site, DRBC said.

The proposed terminal would be an addition to Dock 1, a deep-water berth on the same site for multipurpose freight shipping such as automobiles and break-bulk cargo (not shipped in containers), that was substantially completed in December 2018.

Issues of public and environmental safety

Delaware Riverkeeper Network and other critics argue that the project would be a risk to public safety because of the highly explosive nature of super-cooled natural gas to be transported in rail tankers about 175 miles through many densely populated areas. They also say it would endanger the health of the Delaware River, and increase demand for fracked gas amid efforts by New Jersey and many other states to reduce their dependence on climate-altering fossil fuels. The environmental group said the hearing announcement shows DRBC now recognizes that it should have given the public more opportunity to comment before approving the project.

Delaware Riverkeeper Network leader van Rossum said it should not have been necessary for her organization to file a legal challenge and obtain expert reports — which will be presented at the hearing — to challenge the DRBC’s approval.

Kate Schmidt, a spokeswoman for DRBC, said the commission gave 14 days’ notice of a June 6, 2019 public hearing on whether to approve the project, more than the 10 days required by commission rules, and written comment was accepted until June 7. The commission approved the project on June 12.

After the upcoming hearing, the hearing officer will submit his findings and recommendations, based on hearing testimony and public written comments, which must be received by April 24, Schmidt said.

‘Highly unusual’ move to reopen case

Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey, said that reopening the public debate over the project was a “highly unusual” move that reflected an inadequate comment period before the approval was issued.

“Better late than never to have a more open public-comment process, but it’s a reflection that the public didn’t get an adequate opportunity to weigh in previously,” he said. “It was a very rushed process that followed the letter of the law but did not follow the spirit.”

Airing the issues before a hearing officer will provide “a measure of independence” to the process, said O’Malley, whose organization also opposes the plan. Even though the commission is not required to accept the hearing officer’s recommendations, any conclusion that the terminal should not go ahead would send a “very powerful message” to the DRBC, he said.

In June last year, the project needed permits from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Coast Guard, Gloucester County, and Greenwich Township, the DRBC said.

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See also: Delaware Riverkeeper appeals state permit for LNG project in Gibbstown, Cherry Hill Courier Post, October 21, 2019

A coalition of environmental groups is fighting plans to ship LNG (liquefied natural gas) from Repauno Port & Rail Terminal on the Delaware River in Greenwich Township. Formerly owned by DuPont Company, the site is now under development by New Fortress Energy and Delaware River Partners as a rail terminal and deep-water port.

LNG trucks exist but what happens in a highway accident?

From an Article by Jon Hurdle, NJ Spotlight, June 3, 2019

Plans to build a liquefied natural gas export terminal at Gibbstown in Greenwich Township, Gloucester County have not been fully disclosed to the public by regulatory agencies or by the developer of the site on the Delaware River in South Jersey, an environmental group says.

Delaware Riverkeeper Network accused the developer, Delaware River Partners, and several regulators of not doing enough to keep the public informed of the plan to build the terminal that would transfer super-cooled natural gas from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale via trucks to ocean-going tankers.

Although documents from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Greenwich Township show that the LNG plan has in fact received some disclosure, Delaware Riverkeeper says the project has been mostly kept hidden from the public despite concerns that LNG is potentially explosive, and that the terminal would represent an expansion of fossil-fuel infrastructure amid global efforts to curb carbon emissions.

Calling the matter “a deliberate coverup,” DRN accused the agencies and the company of trying to avoid public criticism by keeping the plans quiet.

“There would be no reason not to disclose this critical body of information other than to evade a full and fair review by agencies and the public,” the group said in a letter to environmental officials in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, the Delaware River Basin Commission, and other regulators.

Multi-use marine terminal

DRN said it has since 2016 been monitoring a plan to build a multi-use marine terminal called Gibbstown Logistics Center on a former DuPont site but only learned of a proposal to add the LNG terminal after “conversations” with agency staff.

“At no time throughout Delaware Riverkeeper Network’s participation in the public review of this project was the export of LNG from the facility ever discussed,” DRN told the agencies.

It urged the DRBC to cancel a June 6 hearing scheduled to discuss the addition of a dock including two deep-water berths at the Gibbstown facility, and said the agency had not mentioned LNG exports in any of its public documents relating to the hearing.

DRBC, an interstate regulator of water quality in the river basin, said the LNG plan had not been included in a permit application from Delaware River Partners (DRP) but that the regulator has no plans to cancel the hearing.

“If DRP had included LNG export in its project description in its application to the commission … DRBC would have included that description in both of the draft dockets and related public notices,” said Kate Schmidt, a spokeswoman for the agency.

‘Accepted at face value’

In December 2017, DRBC approved the company’s application for a multi-use marine terminal that would include “bulk liquids and gases handling” and “accepted that at face value,” Schmidt wrote in an email.

The United States began exporting liquefied natural gas in early 2016 in response to a surge in domestic production caused by hydraulic fracking of shale reserves. Most export terminals are on the Gulf Coast but they also include one at Cove Point in Maryland.

LNG exports from abundant U.S. gas reserves such as those in Pennsylvania are being touted by the Trump administration as a way of promoting U.S. notions of freedom around the world.

Last week, the U.S. Under Secretary of Energy, Mark W. Menezes, called LNG “freedom gas” when announcing plans for a new export terminal in Texas. “Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy,” Menezes said in an Energy Department press release.

Accused of trying ‘to hide the ball’

For the planned Gibbstown facility, Delaware River Partners is talking to potential customers who are interested in “transloading a variety of energy related liquids, potentially including liquefied natural gas,” said Liz Thomas, a spokeswoman. She said the company has notified all relevant permitting agencies of its plans.

One of the agencies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, issued a public notice on April 4 saying the site would be used to handle a “multitude” of products including LNG, which would be brought in by truck or rail and then loaded onto ships. Steve Rochette, a spokesman for the Corps’ Philadelphia office, said the notice was sent to DRN and other environmental groups.

But Maya van Rossum, head of Delaware Riverkeeper, said the Corps’ brief mention of LNG doesn’t excuse it of failing to publicly and thoroughly investigate the proposal. “The Army Corps is among the parties involved who sought to hide the ball through lack of information and clear and obvious obfuscation,” she said.

Van Rossum said the Corps had not disclosed plans for LNG in its response to Freedom of Information Act filings by DRN, and its staff had not told DRN anything about the LNG part of the Gibbstown plan.

LNG would be trucked to Gibbstown

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection did not respond to questions on whether it had approved the terminal as part of the Gibbstown project or whether the developer had disclosed a plan to transfer LNG, but cited a letter from the company to Greenwich Township officials, saying that the terminal’s uses would include the transfer of LNG.

“This marine terminal is planned to include uses such as an automobile import and processing facility, a bulk liquids storage and handling facility for the transfer of liquefied natural gas and other materials, as well as perishables and bulk cargo handling and logistics,” the letter said.

If implemented, the Pennsylvania gas would be liquefied at a new plant in Bradford County, Pa., and then trucked to Gibbstown, according to a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission by New Fortress Energy, developer of the liquefaction plant. The $800 million plant would be able to produce 3-4 million gallons a day of LNG.

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See Also: U.S. FERC approves two new LNG export terminals in Texas and Louisiana — Reuters News Service, April 18, 2019

(Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved construction of two proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals, Tellurian Inc’s Driftwood in Louisiana and Sempra Energy’s Port Arthur in Texas.

From Ted Glick, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, February 5, 2014

For those of you in the Marcellus Shale region, this is an urgent request that you mark your calendar for Thursday, February 20th and make plans to get to Baltimore and bring as many people with you as you can.

Why? Because fracking fighters like you from across the Mid-Atlantic are converging on February 20th to take a stand against the biggest single gas drilling threat we face: Cove Point.

This proposed $3.8 billion export terminal would take fracked gas from throughout the Marcellus Shale, liquefy it on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, and ship it to Asia. If Cove Point gets built by mega-polluter Dominion Resources, then the increased pressure to frack throughout your state will be ENORMOUS. As will the pulse of new planet-heating pollution that wrecks our climate. Bill McKibben calls Cove Point “one of the most important fossil fuel fights in America.”

Whether you’re retired, you’re a student, or you have any flexibility at your job – you’re needed in Baltimore at noon on February 20th.

Please join us for a lunchtime rally Feb. 20th in downtown Baltimore to say “NO” to Cove Point and “NO” to fracked-gas exports from your state to Maryland and off to Asia. February 20th is a critical date to join this growing fight in Maryland, and draw a region-wide line in the sand. That’s when the state Public Service Commission, headquartered in Baltimore, will begin its official deliberations over key permits for Cove Point.

We’ll rally downtown with unforgettable speakers like Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus, Mike Tidwell of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Maya van Rossum of Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Karen Feridun of Berks Gas Truth. Then, with music, drumming, and lots of noise, we’ll march to the Public Service Commission, urging them to reject Dominion’s dirty permit. Since Governor O’Malley’s Baltimore offices in are in the same building, our voices will reach him, too!

Dominion’s plan is radical: to pipe fracked gas from across the Marcellus to the Chesapeake Bay in southern Maryland, liquefy it to minus 260 F, and pour it onto tanker ships for the 6,000-mile journey to India and Japan. The “life cycle” greenhouse gas emissions make exported fracked gas worse than coal. Plus the pressure to frack in your state surges.

Please make plans to join the lunchtime rally February 20th in downtown Baltimore to say “NO” to Cove Point and “NO” to fracked-gas exports from your state to Maryland and off to Asia.  And help us forward this alert far and wide to everyone you know who’s concerned about fracking where you live.

We can stop Cove Point. But to take on Dominion — and their slick ads and political influence — we need to act fast and get big. We need a grassroots movement that reaches as far and wide as the potential fracking wells, pipelines, compressor stations and “liquefaction” plants this export project would trigger.

Hope to see you in Baltimore!

>>> Ted Glick is the national policy director for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.