Many people do not realize that Malibu and its neighboring cities could soon be endangered by a 3-football field long, 14 story high, Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) plant anchored 14 miles off the coast of Malibu. The project, which will be visible from shore, will be built and owned by BHP Billiton. It is innocuously named “Cabrillo Port.”
Cabrillo Port will be an environmental disaster. At least twice a week, ships will arrive from Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia loaded with natural gas that has been cooled to a liquid state. While docked in the open ocean, the ships will transfer the LNG to the floating plant to be superheated to such a temperature that it will again become gas. Once “regasified,” the gas will be pumped through about 14 miles of pipeline under the ocean to the shore.
Floating on the border of Malibu just above County Line, the plant will be the biggest polluter in Ventura County. By one calculation, the operation will generate nitrogen oxide equivalent to 52,000 car trips a day. Ocean Breezes will likely blow the filthy air to the beaches, the inland valleys and the Los Angeles basin. The regasification process will require billions of gallons of hot water annually, all of which will be dumped into the ocean, disrupting and harming ocean life around the platform.
A group is forming in Malibu to oppose the project. It is an amazing coalition of people and organizations who have previously been at odds with each other, but are united in their opposition to this project. The participants include The California Coastal Protection Network or CCPN (headed by Susan Jordan), real estate brokers, environmentalists, concerned citizens, homeowner associations and the Environmental Defense Center (EDC). The EDC (www.edcnet.org) is the environmental law firm that, hired by CCPN, has spent many months collecting information, hiring experts and commenting on the Environmental Impact Report that is being prepared for the State Lands Commission, one of the bodies that must approve the project. We have to thank the CCPN and the EDC who have been fighting this issue for the last two years along with the Sierra Club in Oxnard.
This project poses such a threat that Andy Stern sponsored and our City Council has passed a $50,000 donation to the EDC to help defray their legal costs.
This issue is extremely important for Malibu; we must stand together.
E. Barry Haldeman