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Coast Guard Says It Won't Stop Bid to Shield Bridge

Posted on: Sunday, 28 August 2005, 21:00 CDT

Aug. 28--The Coast Guard says it will not block a state plan to preserve a bridge over the Taunton River even though its demolition is necessary for operation of a planned liquefied natural gas facility in Fall River.

If the Brightman Street Bridge, which carries US 6 traffic between Fall River and Somerset, remains in place, large tankers that would import LNG from foreign countries would not be able to fit through its narrow opening to travel upriver to unload at the proposed Weaver's Cove Energy site.

The Massachusetts Highway Department had planned to demolish the drawbridge once construction of a new bridge is complete. But US Representative James McGovern, who opposes the LNG project, wrote a provision into a recent federal transportation bill in hopes of preserving it as a bicycle and pedestrian path and emergency vehicle route.

After Congress approved the bill last month, Weaver's Cove said it would ask the Coast Guard to reaffirm that destruction of the bridge should occur when its replacement is open. The Coast Guard oversees marine traffic and was involved in permitting construction of the new bridge and demolition of the current structure.

But during a meeting Friday in Boston organized by McGovern, the Coast Guard told transportation and other officials it will allow the current bridge to remain once the new span opens in 2010.

"The legislation that was passed said it wasn't going to be torn down, and that's exactly what we are going with," Kelly Newlin, a Coast Guard spokeswoman in Boston, said yesterday. "There's nothing that we are going to do to try to sway them otherwise."

Weaver's Cove chose its Fall River location in part because the state planned to remove the current bridge. If it stays in place, both sides agree that developing the Taunton River site won't be feasible because tankers could not reach it from the ocean.

Jim Grasso, a Weaver's Cove spokesman, expressed disappointment in the Coast Guard's position.

"That's clearly at odds with what the permit for the new bridge says," Grasso said. "Part of the permitting for the new bridge was to ensure the safety of the shipping traffic."

Allowing an old, narrow drawbridge to remain is imprudent, he added.

Governor Mitt Romney is among numerous elected officials in Massachusetts and Rhode Island who have adamantly opposed the Fall River LNG project, arguing that it's not appropriate to put such a volatile facility in an urban area. But no one in his administration proposed saving the old bridge as a way to prevent construction of the plant until McGovern, Democrat of Worcester, hatched the idea.

He quietly inserted a ban on federal funding for demolition of the Brightman Street Bridge into the conference report of the $286 billion transportation bill that President Bush signed into law Aug. 10. The bill authorizes $500,000 to convert the existing drawbridge to a hike-and-bike trestle.

Though Massachusetts could still destroy the existing state bridge if officials use state money to pay the $5.2 million cost, Jon Carlisle, Highway Department spokesman, said yesterday that the department now supports maintaining it. He said the Coast Guard permits don't require demolition of the bridge as long as it is used for transportation.

"By saving the bridge for bikes, pedestrians, and emergency vehicles, that is a transportation purpose," Carlisle said.

Weaver's Cove will continue pursuing the project despite this and other obstacles, Grasso said. Earlier this month, the Navy urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to rescind its approval for the Fall River LNG plant, and a planning commission in Rhode Island released studies indicating that LNG tankers would be disruptive to shipping and highway traffic.

Grasso dismissed the objections, saying the LNG industry has an "exemplary" safety record and concerns about tankers' impact on other traffic are overblown.

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Source: The Boston Globe

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