If your readers want to start doing something to fight the Cabrillo LNG Port intended to be built 14 miles off our coast, here is what can be done immediately.
The Environmental Protection Agency has recently held hearings and is now taking written comments on two permits it must grant for the project to go forward. Malibu was poorly represented at the hearings so the EPA feels we are not very concerned about the Cabrillo Port LNG facility. We have to show them otherwise.
One permit the EPA must grant is to allow the yearly discharge of billions of gallons of ballast water, deck drainage, gray water, sanitary waste, desalination unit discharge, bilge water and heated water (used to cool the LNG), into the ocean, affecting, forever, the ecosystem and living creatures within a large area around the platform. Objections to that permit must be received by June 20 and should be e-mailed to honor.lisa@epa.gov or mailed to Lisa Honor, CWA Standards and Permits Office (WTR-5), EPA Region 9, 75 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco CA 94104-3901. You should stress your concern about the significant water quality impact the Cabrillo port will have on the ocean, the coast and wildlife.
The second permit is to allow the discharge of tons of new pollution into the atmosphere each year, pollution that will seriously degrade the quality of our air. Originally the EPA required Cabrillo Port to comply with tough air quality standards. After intense lobbying by BHP Billiton, EPA reversed itself reasoning that the facility was offshore and ignoring the fact that winds would blow the polluted air on shore to affect Malibu, Ventura, and Oxnard. Objections to that permit must be received by July 3, and can be sent by e-mail to cabrilloportpermit@epa.gov or by mail to Joe Lapka (AIR-3), EPA Region 9, 75 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco CA 94104-3901.
Stress that you want to live in a community with healthy air quality that meets state and national quality standards and the permitting of the port will increase onshore air pollution. An e-mail or letter is all that is necessary. The EPA just has to know that we are watching them and many people are against the project.
For more information go to edcnet.org.
E. Barry Haldeman