Gloves come off in new LNG dispute

Supporters and opponents of new plans to use Ventura County waters as a staging area for liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports squared off Sept. 13.

Picketers gathered outside the Island Packers docks at the Ventura Harbor as invited guests prepared to board a whale watching boat chartered by NorthernStar Natural Gas. NorthernStar, a Houston-based company, backs a project known as Clearwater Port that would turn Platform Grace, an oil platform about 11 miles from the Ventura County coast into a LNG receiving terminal.

It was the first skirmish in a battle that could erupt at public hearings in October and eclipse a similar struggle that ended this spring with the world’s largest mining company limping away in defeat.

On Aug. 30, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Maritime Administration informed NorthernStar that its application for a deepwater port license was accepted. On Sept. 18, the Maritime Administration announced public scoping meetings have been scheduled for Oct. 3 in Oxnard and Oct. 4 in Santa Clarita. Comments received at the meeting and through other means are due Oct. 18 (see box). The comments should help both federal agencies and the California State Lands Commission (CLCS) shape the questions they want addressed in Clearwater’s environmental impact report and statement.

The Clearwater Port project was originally proposed in 2004 by Crystal Energy, which transferred ownership to NorthernStar in 2006 (Crystal Energy executives Paul Soanes and Si Garrett remain at NorthernStar’s helm after the transition). NorthernStar has also proposed an LNG project on Oregon’s Columbia River known as Bradwood Landing.

While Crystal Energy’s application for licenses stalled, BHP Billiton, an Australian company, moved forward with plans to build a new floating LNG terminal off the Oxnard coast. Although Billiton fought hard for the proposal (in 2005, it was among the top 10 spenders on lobbying of California officials), it was defeated in April after the CLCS refused to issue a permit for the company to build a new gas pipeline from the terminal to shore.

Now, it appears both NorthernStar and its opponents learned from the debate over Billiton’s plans. Since NorthernStar took over the Clearwater Port project in 2006, it has assembled a team of executives and spokespeople with extensive contacts in the business community, in local government and at the state and federal levels.

As Billiton was assailed for lobbying U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials to exempt them from local air quality standards, Clearwater’s new team began positioning their project as an environmentally sensitive alternative. They highlighted technology that would limit greenhouse emissions as shipments are converted from liquid back into their gaseous form, and they pledged to follow the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District standards Billiton tried to avoid.

“What we’re trying to do already to this point is to design a project that is unique from several perspectives,” said Joe Desmond, a former California Energy Commissioner now working as a spokesperson for Clearwater. “It is making use of best available control technology to reduce emissions by 80 percent compared to the other proposals.”

Desmond pointed out that where Billiton was going to sell its own gas, Clearwater would open the port to competition from different gas companies, a proposal that could lower prices for consumers.

“Taking all that into account, I think the project should be met more favorably, but people will have questions along the way and we certainly look forward to answering those,” Desmond said.

But it doesn’t appear opponents are yet satisfied by the answers they have received. Organizations and individuals involved in the fight against Billiton have already dissected Clearwater’s Deepwater Port application.

A day before the protest outside Island Packers, the Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center (EDC) released a fact sheet highlighting a number of negative impacts to the marine environment and marine life it said are identified in the application. These include: pollution to shell mounds from construction; destruction of habitats; impacts to marine life from construction noise; and long-term threats in the event of spills. It also said the company refused to acknowledge the threat tanker traffic — as frequent as two to three ships per week — could have on whale populations, despite concerns already expressed by state and federal regulators.

Desmond said that EDC’s position took Clearwater’s application out of context, and that a draft environmental impact report and statement will address any current data gaps.

“We think it’s good that they raised those issues but we spent quite a bit of time over the last several years making sure the application is complete and addresses those [questions],” he said.

Multiple speakers at the protest, however, said they believed NorthernStar wasn’t coming forward with all the information it has available. Among them was Larry Godwin, who, with his wife Shirley, are part of the Saviers Road Design Team, an Oxnard neighborhood group that joined in the previous anti-LNG battle. Godwin wasn’t convinced Clearwater Port was an attractive alternative to the Billiton proposal he helped defeat. He said the project could endanger the local economy as much as the environment.

“If you take a look at the safety footprint required for tankers, it’s going to affect ship traffic, it’s going to affect recreational boaters, it’s going to affect the Island Packers here with the whale watching,” he said. “It’s going to affect everybody.”

Clearwater Port Project Manager and NorthernStar Vice President Billy Owens said Godwin and other opponents have refused to engage with his company.

“We’ve been inviting them to have discussions, some of which might have been this boat tour if they’ve wanted to talk to us,” Owens said. “They have declined to talk to us because they don’t think there’s any need for an LNG facility.”

Before the cruise, many of those preparing to board the boat said they wanted more information about LNG and the Clearwater Port project. They also expressed doubts that the project was unnecessary.

“Certainly there is a need for it or people wouldn’t have invested the kind of money that it needs for this to go forward, but I haven’t learned enough to really understand whether I can support it or not,” said Jim Drain, a Carpinteria resident.

Mike Morgan, a current member of the Air Pollution Control District Board, said he wanted first-hand information. Dismissing a protester who told him the platform was built on a fault line, Morgan said he questions the “propaganda” from both sides.

“The problem is no matter what they’re going to do to make it environmentally sound, this group over here is not going to want it period,” Morgan said. “When someone comes and tells me something they know is wrong, I get a little bit angry, yes. I don’t like someone telling me something wrong just to make me do something wrong.”

Morgan said he hopes to hold the same scrutiny up to NorthernStar if the project comes before his board.

“When that comes to us here about the air quality management plan in the county I’ll question every bit of it,” he said.

Protesters were already questioning the project. Carmen Ramirez, an attorney and one of the organizers of the protest, said those going on the trip should take note of the beauty and uniqueness of the nearby Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary and coastline.

“We’re here to say we’re not going to let NorthernStar come in with propaganda [and] slick advertising like Billiton did,” Ramirez said. “We are now prepared to question the need, the detrimental affects. We’re just not going to sit by while they try to get their way by passing money out in the community, by doing propaganda trips like this."