USCG: Inadequate Fire Protection on LI Sound

[Truck4 48]

Coast Guard lays out risks of natural gas barge on Sound

By KEN VALENTI

THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original publication: September 23, 2006)

NEW HAVEN, CONN. — A large, stationary barge storing liquid natural gas in the middle of Long Island Sound would present hazards such as the potential for an intense fire, but it could be operated safely with precautions in place, including a no-sail zone around it and the vessels that supply it, the U.S. Coast Guard concluded in a report released yesterday.

The facility, which would become a piece of the region's energy system, would also require more Coast Guard vessels and a stronger marine firefighting force in the region, with local governments paying part of the cost of a project that many people oppose.

To make the Broadwater Energy facility safe, a buffer zone of 1.5 square miles would have to be set around the barge and around tankers traveling to it two or three times a week to bring more of the fuel to be stored and distributed, the report says.

"We feel that the risks to safety and security could be mitigated," said U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Peter J. Boynton, presenting the findings yesterday at the Coast Guard's Long Island Sound headquarters in New Haven. He said more firefighting boats would be needed on the Sound.

"We have found that marine firefighting on Long Island Sound is inadequate — it's inadequate today, even without the Broadwater proposal," Boynton said. "Improved marine firefighting would be required, were this proposal to be approved by FERC."

Both opponents of the facility and Broadwater representatives saw the study, called a water suitability report, as validation of their opposing views.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Long Island-based Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said the report confirmed what she had feared.

"This validates everything we've been saying," she said. "The Broadwater proposal is downright scary. It's expensive and it's risky."

Amy Kelley, a Broadwater spokeswoman, praised the report.

"We're thrilled that they've confirmed that this is not a terrorist target and that this can operate safely and securely in Long Island Sound," she said.

The Broadwater Energy facility, a joint venture of Shell and TransCanada Corp., would rise 80 feet above the water and would be almost a quarter-mile long. Moored nine miles off Suffolk County and 10 miles off Connecticut, the facility would house tanks with a total 350,000 cubic meters of storage. The tanks would hold natural gas that has been super-cooled to convert it to a liquid.

On Broadwater, the fuel would be converted back into a gas and piped into the Iroquois Pipeline, which crosses the Sound, supplying homes, businesses and power plants. Broadwater Energy plans to begin operating the facility in 2010.

Up to 1.25 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day could be fed into the line, enough to heat 4 million homes for a year, according to Broadwater.

An accident could cause an intense fire, but not an explosion, Boynton said. It would burn off in about an hour, as compared with an oil spill that, if ignited, can burn for days. He said however, that the 45-year-old liquefied natural gas industry has never suffered such an accident.

The report also raises the possibility that a cloud of flammable vapor could be released in an accident, spreading as much as 4.7 miles from the facility or 4.3 miles from a tanker supplying it. Such a cloud, which would be flammable, would be able to reach some points on land, such as part of Long Island's north fork.

Boynton said it was unlikely such a cloud would be released because anything that punctured the hull of a tanker would probably spark a fire.

A plan for responding to emergencies would have to be put together with Broadwater, the states and federal agencies, Boynton said. But Broadwater would share the costs of additional resources such as firefighting equipment, he said.

Kelley confirmed that plan.

"We do not want to be a burden on taxpayers," she said.

Rep Tim Bishop, a Long Island Democrat, objected to the security costs it would bring.

"We have better energy solutions, such as the Islander East Pipeline," he said. "We don't need to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on boats and security zones or industrialize the Long Island Sound to accommodate Broadwater when there are better and safer solutions."

Bishop's comments came in a joint statement with New York's Democratic U.S. senators, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer.

"The Coast Guard report confirms what we have been saying all along — that there are significant concerns associated with the project," Clinton said. "I continue to believe that the Broadwater proposal is just the wrong idea for the Sound."

In the statement, Schumer also stressed the safety concerns.

Opponents fear the facility would be a terrorist target. The Coast Guard report found that because the facility is far from population centers where an accident would claim many lives and difficult for the media and the public to view, it "would more than likely not be an attractive terrorist target."

The Coast Guard would be required to process the traffic generated by the facility — tankers traveling to the barge two or three times a week from foreign regions such as the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East, Boynton said.

Boynton stressed that the Coast Guard was not taking a position on the project and had been charged only with reviewing the proposal's safety, not its aesthetics or environmental impacts or whether it is an appropriate use of the estuary. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will make the final determination after public hearings are held. The Coast Guard report is part of the FERC review, which is expected to be completed next year.

Boynton also said the moorings Broadwater Energy proposed to hold the facility in place would be strong enough to withstand a category five hurricane.

[Doc 11]

I think the proposed LNG facility is a good thing. LI has serious energy needs and this beats putting nukes in Smithtown. I also agree more needs to be done to protect this facility and the surrounding vicinity. My issue is how Shell and Trans-Canada is funding it.

Last I heard, industrial fire brigades still exist, though they certainly aren't profit centers. They are, I guess, a throw-back to a time when our corporate neighbors weren't so averse to spending money to protect their neighbors and themselves from their own toys. I think when a business establishes a facility with unique risks and hazards far beyond what the local community can handle, they should take responsibility for the safety of their employees and the public by providing protection AT THEIR COST.

If I were to somehow get permission to build a nuclear power generating unit in my backyard, I doubt I'd be able to go before the local fire district board and say, "Ok, I'm building this little thing in my backyard that'll make me rich. It could theoretically kill everybody here and everybody in five miles of my tool shed... and I expect you and everybody else to protect me and it... here's $500.00 to buy sunglasses... don't say I didn't help out... thanks. Don't raise my taxes now."

I'm sure Shell / Trans-Canada is doing it's part, but you know it's not going to be much more than a token gesture.

My question for everybody to consider is this:

When does an individual (and a corporation is in effect a legal individual) have the responsibility to assume the safety costs of his or her business and when does the community have to bear the cost? Where's the breaking point? How far and beyond the norm does a community have to go to accomodate what somebody decides to do on their private property?

Also, on a lighter side...

Do you think they'll be able to get restored Mack CF cabs on all the boats they'll need?

- Doc

[IzzyEng4 427]

Not for nothing, anything do do with the sound seems to me to always to benifit Long Island, not Connecticut. For years our legislature has battled with the NY legislature to help us clean up the sound and more times that so, it gets bogged down, but better in recent years.

This is our main waterway and our coast line too. Yes I do think a LNG facility is a good thing but not in the sound. Its way too close to both coast lines and also it will effect a lot of shipping traffic. Group Long Island Sound in New Haven, which protects these waters will eventually have to beef up their forces especially with security threats. Now what to protect this I can't go to my favorite fishing spot in the sound?

What about traffic from the sub base in Groton??? Did they thing of this as well? The subs do operate in the sound down to the Harlem and East Rivers, its thier way to the old Brooklyn Navy Yard and when 9-11 happened the subs traveled to NYC this way. Not this could potetially hinder thier operations. I know that there is a proposed 1.5 mile no sail zone but that is not enough and also the fact that marine fire suppression operations in the Sound, with the exception of the Coast Guard, is nil. What community has a fire boat that can handle such an operation? New Haven decommissioned the Sally Lee (Marine 1) years ago after it fell into disrepair and they could fund it and it was the bigewst fire boat I can remember in this area since it was berrthed at the tank fam at the mouth of the Quinnipiac River and New Haven Bay.

I'm all for alternative energies but the location of this storage facility is the wrong place for both CT and NY. The Sound is not hurricane proof and the waters can get down right nasty sometimes. I think more research for a better location is needed.