January 31, 2006
Broadwater Opposed
By Kathleen Amoia

The Killingworth Board of Selectmen recently voted unanimously to approve a resolution opposing the industrial complex proposed by Broadwater Energy for Long Island Sound. They thereby joined a growing list of shoreline towns and political officials speaking out against the project.

Pat Smulders, a member of the Killingworth Democratic Town Committee brought the issue before the Board of Selectmen after attending a meeting of the Shoreline League of Democratic Women. This was an informational meeting at which Attorney General Richard Blumenthal addressed the dangers the facility would pose to the region.

The Liquefied Natural Gas Facility is a joint venture of TransCanada Corp and Royal Dutch/ Shell. As projected, it would be a $700 million floating gas plant eleven miles south of Branford Harbor and 9 miles north of Wading River on the Long Island shore. As large as the Queen Mary II, it would be lit up at all times. It would require designating a large portion of the Sound around it off limits to the public for safety reasons. The no boat, no use zone would also extend around any LNG tanker moving into the Sound at any given time.

The Broadwater terminal, if built, would be more than twice as large as any liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the United States and the first in the world ever to be located off shore. It would, in effect, be an experiment in offshore LNG storage in an area that has twenty million people residing within a 50 mile radius. Unfortunately, hardly inadvertently, the Energy Bill recently passed by Congress and signed into law by the President, gives the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) the power to overrule state and local objections to the placement of such LNG platforms.

The storage facility is about a mile over the New York State line. Connecticut leaders say that this puts them at a disadvantage because permits and plan approvals will fall under the jurisdiction of New York officials. Governor Rell is seeking a formal role with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in the approval of the Broadwater facility on the basis that it will impact Connecticut in many of the same ways it will New York.

Many of the objections to the Broadwater Energy plan outlined in the Killingworth Board of Selectmen's resolution are understandably environmental. They include issues as diverse as the visual and noise impacts of the facility, water quality in the immediate area and potential gas spills.

A recent article in the Connecticut Post stated that the Coast Guard feels it is being shortchanged about many of the safety and security details of the proposed terminal. They will be responsible for safety and security assessments and are asking for more information about crucial areas of the project. It is not reassuring to read that the Coast Guard does not yet have access to information it needs.

The Broadwater LNG project for our Sound is one of those issues that concern us all. The energy industry has its friends in Washington; we must make sure that our elected representatives hear from us too. We still get to elect them, or not.

TOP