State Rejects Dredging Request By Weaver’s Cove

By C Eugene Emery Jr

Rulings by environment officials are only the latest setbacks for a plan to bring LNG tankers up the Taunton River.

Two bureaus of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection have denied a request by Weaver’s Cove Energy to dredge 2.6 million cubic yards of sediment from the Taunton River. The written decision was dated Monday. The dredging is needed to lay pipeline beneath the river to serve its liquefied natural gas facility proposed for Fall River and to bring LNG tankers up the river to feed the facility.

The DEP rulings say that the information provided by Weaver’s Cove was inadequate, and inconsistent with the rules designed to protect aquatic life in the river.

“We fully intend to appeal these two decisions,” Weaver’s Cove spokesman James A. Grasso said last night.

The rulings are only the latest setbacks for the project.

The Coast Guard concluded last October that it would be unsafe to bring LNG tankers up the river.

That determination was widely considered by opponents to be a fatal blow to the project, but Weaver’s Cove has consistently plunged ahead.

“Hess LNG [Weaver's Cove parent company] is determined to continue this project to its fruition,” said Grasso. “This project is, despite what you might hear, far from dead. It is very much alive. The reason is, we need the energy.”

The DEP denials came after conservation commissions in Somerset and Fall River rejected the project, expressing concern about its effects on wildlife in and along the waterway.

The Coast Guard’s determination played a key role in the DEP rejections.

In a letter to Weaver’s Cove, Glenn Haas, acting assistant commissioner of DEP’s Bureau of Resource Protection, cites “inconsistencies and contradictions” between Weaver’s Cove’s application and the Coast Guard’s conclusions as a reason for the rejection.

And in a separate determination, Lealdon Langley, director of the Wetlands and Waterways Program, also cited the Coast Guard’s analysis showing that the waterway is not suitable for LNG tankers.

“The Department finds that the applicant has failed to demonstrate that the project serves a proper public purpose that provides greater benefits than detriments to rights of the public in said tidelines,” Langley wrote, adding that Weaver’s Cove’s factual assumptions about the project were “inconsistent and irreconcilable to the findings and conclusions” of the Coast Guard.

“The decision is certainly the right decision,” said Christina Wordell, Somerset’s conservation agent. “It’s very gratifying to know the government has been able to see through all the documentation presented by Weaver’s Cove to see that it was inadequate when it comes to protecting the waterways.”

“It proves the state of Massachusetts is not for sale, at least,” she said.

The rejection applies to three separate applications, two by Weaver’s Cove and one by Mill River Pipeline LLC, which would place the 24-inch transmission pipe under the river and through Somerset to hook up to the Duke/Algonquin Gas Transmission system.

Under the proposal, most of the dredged material would be sent offshore for disposal, although the deeper sediment would be kept to cover up the pipe.

Somerset gemery@projo.com / (401) 277-7442

Originally published by C Eugene Emery Jr, Journal Staff Writer.

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