Mass. city takes on Washington to halt LNG project

By Jason Szep

FALL RIVER, Massachusetts (Reuters) – Fall River, a
Massachusetts city of rusting textile mills, is stepping up a
fight to block a liquefied natural gas project that residents
fear could become the target of terrorists.

A group of politicians from Massachusetts and Rhode Island
filed a petition on Friday to force a federal energy panel to
reconsider plans for the controversial terminal of the
flammable gas in the coastal city of 92,000 people.

Security experts say an explosion of just one tank on an
LNG ship could spark a fire half a mile wide. Richard Clarke, a
former White House counterterrorism official, estimates an LNG
terrorist attack in a populated area would be “catastrophic.”

“It’s foolhardy and it’s dangerous,” said Ed Lambert, mayor
of the industrial city where “No LNG” signs dot many lawns
after Washington approved the $250 million terminal in June.

“It makes no sense in the post-9/11 world to locate a
dangerous facility in a populated area,” he said. “This would
be the most densely populated area that an LNG facility would
ever have been placed in.”

Fall River has become a flashpoint in a U.S. debate over
plans by President George W. Bush and big energy companies to
develop a global market for natural gas with the United States
as the world’s biggest importer.

Although it accounts for only 3 percent of U.S. gas
consumption today, that could hit 30 percent over the next two
decades, and energy firms are scrambling to expand the number
of LNG terminals in the country to 40 from just four.

Fall River is the first project approved for a populated
area and the fight could the set the pace for other coastal
proposals — from California to Texas — as Washington promotes
LNG as a cheaper, cleaner energy alternative, particularly for
generating electricity.

TRANSPORT BILL OFFERS HOPE

Leading the battle is Lambert, whose petition is backed by
the attorneys general of Massachusetts and nearby Rhode Island
and seeks a new hearing by the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission to reverse its approval.

Lambert was given a shot of confidence this week when Bush
signed into law a transportation bill that the mayor says could
freeze the project in its tracks.

A provision in the bill bans the use of federal funds to
demolish a bridge that must come down in order for the massive
tanker ships to reach the terminal 60 miles south of Boston.

“We don’t think they can legitimately go through with a
project to which there is no access for the tankers,” he said.

Fall River also could take the battle to court and argue
the energy regulator abused its authority by approving the
terminal without considering the safety problems.

The company says safety and security arrangements would be
in place by the time the first LNG shipment arrives in 2009.

“We intend to pursue our project,” said Jim Grasso, a
spokesman for Weaver’s Cove Energy, a unit of Amerada Hess
Corp.’s Hess LNG, which plans to build the terminal.

Despite a security plan, the 9,000 people living within a
mile of the terminal risk dying in any attack or accident, the
mayor estimates.

Residents such as Dotty Eleuteril are fearful. “It’s a
bomb,” she sighs, standing on her lawn not far from the
proposed terminal. “It turns this city into one big target.”

Even though Eleuteril’s husband is out of work in a city
whose unemployment rate is 2 percentage points above the state
average, she and the mayor scoff at the suggestion of economic
benefits such as $3 million in annual tax gains and new jobs.

“The industry believes it can wave money at Fall River and
opposition will go away, or in these working-class communities
people won’t be organized enough or courageous enough to take
these powers on,” Lambert said. “It’s just a very bad project.”