An Explosive Issue
In the latest "not in my backyard" dispute, activists are pushing for local officials to have final say in decisions over where to store imported natural gas. The issue has heated up in recent years as the price of natural gas--used in furnaces and gas ranges--skyrocketed and energy companies increasingly looked to foreign sources. One solution: chilling and condensing gas into liquid and shipping it across the ocean in giant tankers to U.S. facilities, where it's reconverted to its natural state and pumped through pipelines.
There are currently four liquefied natural gas, or LNG, terminals on the U.S. mainland--and energy companies are awaiting approval of 15 new sites. Not so fast, say residents in the proposed new areas, citing fears that flammable LNG tankers could become terrorist targets. A recent government study found that an attack could cause an explosion capable of searing the flesh of people as far as a mile away and of significantly damaging structures. A blast wouldn't "even give you enough time to carry out an evacuation plan," says Bry Myown of Long Beach (Calif.) Citizens for Utility Reform, which for over a year has been protesting a plan to put an LNG facility in the busy Port of Long Beach. Other sites being eyed: Providence, R.I.; Long Island Sound, N.Y., and Corpus Christi, Texas.
Activists like Myown have slowed the proliferation of LNG terminals, arguing that the hubs should be built offshore or in isolated, sparsely populated areas. They note potential terrorist strikes and, also, the ease with which an Algerian--later convicted in a plot to detonate a bomb on New Year's Eve 1999--entered the United States on an LNG tanker. They say that state and local officials should decide where to place LNG terminals. But the House, in its energy bill, gives the feds the power. "We're not even ready to face the consequences of a terrorist shooting a shoulder-fired missile into one of these highly flammable tankers," says Jeff Duncan, a spokesman for Democratic Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, who is pushing for local control. "This could create a disaster we can't even comprehend."
This story appears in the June 6, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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