After the wildly successful October 22 Paddle Out Protest in Malibu against the proposed BHP Billiton Cabrillo Port LNG Terminal, BHP Billiton’s public relations representative, Kathi Hann, has been quoted in the international press saying that this opposition is just a celebrity NIMBY issue and that the people who attended this event are not environmentalists. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Ms. Hann appears to have a perpetual problem getting her facts straight since she is also telling the media that the air pollution produced by this massive offshore factory LNG terminal will actually improve air quality. A statement that is ludicrous on its face.
If Ms. Hann wants to accurately portray the facts, she will tell everyone, including her employer, BHP Billiton, that the people who attended the October 22 Paddle-Out Protest came not just from the working class community of Oxnard and its southern neighbor, Malibu, but included many who traveled at their own expense from distant points up and down the California coast.
In fact, since Ms. Hann just the week before personally attended an October 14 “West Coast-No on LNG Day” that involved simultaneous protests in communities stretching from Oregon to Baja, an event that Malibu residents traveled to. She knows full well that U.S. concern about LNG terminals is widespread and growing. More to the point, Hann should be ashamed of herself for attempting to slander the long standing environmental credentials of the Brosnans and others who, for decades, have supported the work of international environmental heroes like Jane Goodall and Jean Michel Cousteau and who were instrumental in saving the last pristine gray whale birthing lagoon in Baja, Mexico.
Her comments demand a retraction and an apology.
These proposed LNG terminals pose significant health and safety impacts, and it is everyone’s right and responsibility to speak out about their concerns. And that is exactly what people from Oregon to New York to the United Kingdom to Russia are doing. This is global, not local.
Susan Jordan, Director
California Coastal Protection Network
Santa Barbara