BHP Billiton ‘Evaluating’ Its Options
By HANS LAETZ Special to the Palisadian-Post A state commission’s 2-1 decision to kill a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal 30 miles west of Pacific Palisades has been hailed by coastal advocates, but the BHP Billiton proposal may not be dead yet. The company has spent four years trying to win approval for its $1-billion Cabrillo Port initiative, which would have permanently anchored a ship the size of an aircraft carrier offshore between Malibu and Oxnard. Although the ship and its fleet of LNG carriers would not be visible from the Palisades, air-quality experts said the regular ocean breezes would have dispersed more than 480 tons of smog-creating chemicals, mostly into the Los Angeles air basin, every year. Company spokesman Patrick E. Cassidy said the Australian firm is still evaluating its options, following the 12-hour public hearing in Oxnard Monday that ended with the rejection. ‘We intend to abide by the process,’ Cassidy said, but begged off answering if that process included a lawsuit. California courts have given government agencies such as the California State Lands Commission wide authority to reject a request under environmental laws, and the Cabrillo Port project would have violated state and federal standards in at least 20 areas. Late Tuesday afternoon, attorneys for BHP Billiton tried to have the matter pulled from this week’s Coastal Commission agenda. But executive director Peter Douglas said it would be impossible for the Cabrillo Port state permit to be delayed, and could be removed from the agenda only if BHP Billiton withdrew its entire application and four years and tens of millions of dollars worth of effort. Attorneys said federal law is more than confusing, but creates a two-track state and federal approval process for a proposed deepwater port. The state permit request is still alive and must continue to be evaluated by the Coastal Commission Thursday and the governor by May 21. But the federal permit died Monday night in Oxnard, as a result of the State Lands Commission to deny the environmental report and refusal to allow the pipelines to cross state-owned lands. Only a successful court ruling could revive Cabrillo Port’s federal permit, but the state is still required to process the state permit, even though the federal permit is, for all purposes, dead in the water. Monday night, the two votes against the project came from the two Democrats on the panel, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi and State Controller John Chiang. The governor’s representative on the panel, Asst. Finance Director Anne Sheehan, cast the lone vote in favor. Sheehan praised the LNG terminal as an important step in bringing what she called a ‘bridge fuel’ into the state, which is grappling to comply with a new greenhouse gas emissions bill that mandates a rollback to 1990 levels by 2020. But Garamendi noted that Cabrillo Port would not come on line until at least 2012. ‘This project does not fulfill an immediate need,’ Garamendi said, adding that the project’s environmental studies proposed 18 alternatives, ‘and rejected every one of those 18 alternatives out of hand without considering them.’ It was the project’s air-pollution impact that troubled Garamendi and Chiang the most. ‘This isn’t going to clean the air in the immediate area of the project,’ Chiang said. ‘I also have serious reservations about locating an LNG plant along our beautiful California coast,’ he said. ‘There are also clear threats to marine life and human safety.’ Shortly after the late-night decision, Schwarzenegger’s office released a statement in which he praised natural gas as the ‘cleanest-burning fossil fuel. An LNG facility to serve our state would make California less vulnerable to variations in supply and price. Despite the action taken today by the State Lands Commission, my office, pursuant to federal law, is using the allotted 45-day review period to make sure that the project meets strict standards of public and environmental safety,’ the governor said. The vote was greeted by polite whoops from the crowd of 800 people in the Oxnard Performing Arts Center, a crowd that had been warned several times by Garamendi not to applaud or make comments–at threat of expulsion. The hearing was punctuated by a large late-afternoon rally outside the Oxnard Performing Arts Center, where Oxnard Police estimated that 2,000 persons listened to speeches outside the hall. Parking spaces within blocks of the Arts Center were taken, leading many Malibu and Palisades residents to circle the area in their cars, horns honking. At one point, a large number of participants shuffled into the hall, but most of the 800 seats were already taken, and Garamendi sternly ordered the aisles cleared. At one point in the evening, Malibu attorney Barry Haldeman asked opponents of the project to stand and raise their hands: nearly every person in the 800-seat auditorium stood quietly. Garamendi then asked them to be seated, and for project backers to stand up. BHP Billiton President Rebecca Macdonald and six others stood up. The hearing lasted 12 hours, and a rough tally showed 16 speakers favoring the terminal, and 111 opposed. Project supporters said the project would bring a badly needed, clean-burning fuel that can replace coal-fired electricity in the state’s grid. ‘We need to find some other source for this energy, and if not from this project, where?’ asked Will Reed, spokesman for the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. ‘I don’t think this is about environmental issues, and I don’t think this is about fish,’ said Donna Worley, a Burbank resident. ‘I think this is about rich people down in Malibu who don’t want to see this thing in their ocean views, and these people have spent a lot of money to scare you to death.’ But the bad news started early for BHP Billiton. Garamendi started the day with a series of blistering questions to Lands Commission staff and the company’s lawyer-lobbyist, attorney Craig Meyer. In a rapid-fire set of terse questions, Garamendi asked if the project’s impact report included greenhouse-gas emissions for the entire trans-Pacific supply chain, estimated by one scientist at 66 times greater than the amount of emissions at the unloading terminal alone. ‘Those emissions are not within this project, because if the gas were not to come here, it would be going to somewhere else,’ the company’s attorney said. A skeptical Garamendi interrupted: ‘Then we are not to be concerned about the greenhouse-gas issue?’ Garamendi and Chiang also bombarded Lands Commission staff with questions about the report’s reliance on four-year-old data on the state’s natural gas needs, and said the foundation for the needs assessment is faulty. Commissioners also said they were unhappy with BHP Billiton’s effort to mitigate the emissions of nitrogen pollution by rebuilding the engines of a pair of tugboats plying the waters between San Pedro and San Francisco. Garamendi noted that the contract for the tugboats lasts only 15 years, and the project will be releasing hundreds of tons of smog upwind of Los Angeles and Ventura counties for 40 years or more. Garamendi also criticized the company for saying in its application it had plans to sell the natural gas in California, when the company’s spokesman said it would be shipped through California to ‘points beyond.’ ‘Is that in the EIR?’ Garamendi asked. ‘It’s not, but it seems to be an important point. How much gas is to be imported through Mexico? The EIR does not say that either.’ BHPB America Vice President Renee Klimczak ended the marathon public hearing with a reminder of the company’s main point, that ‘without natural gas you will not be able to replace coal for electric generation, and natural gas is a very efficient fuel for vehicles.’ The commission’s executive director, Paul Thayer, told the commission there are negative impacts that cannot be mitigated in any way. ‘For example, the chance for a catastrophic event is fairly remote, but that is kind of like rabies–chances are low of getting that, but once you do, it is fairly drastic.’ The Coastal Commission hearing starts Thursday (4/12) at 10 a.m. at Fess Parker’s Resort, 633 E. Cabrillo St., Santa Barbara. It will be webcast live by the commission at its Website: http://www.coastal.ca.gov/mtgcurr.html
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
