Editor, you laid it out clear as day with respect to the potential dangers BHP Billiton could bring to the Malibu coast. The environmental ethic leads one to believe that natural gas is relatively harmless as compared to petroleum fuels. This may be true as it pertains to the MTA bus fleet. However, the risk of a bus accident is worlds apart from what Billiton is proposing offshore.
Nearly a century after the Titanic disaster, you still can’t turn a 950-foot ship on a dime. The tankers Billiton wants to park in our waters require a stopping distance of five miles. They are double hulled, but so was the French oil tanker that was pierced by a tiny terrorist boat in Yemen.
Billiton spokespeople are calling the likelihood of a spill at the proposed three-tanker facility “very remote.” They want us to think that Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) accidents never happen. In upcoming hearings, they will undoubtedly bring in PR hired guns to distance their operation from the one that exploded recently in Algeria. The spin has already begun, with U.S. LNG proponents characterizing the Algerian facility as one built with older hardware. They fail to mention that it was revamped with the latest technology in 1999. The explosion on Jan. 19, 2004, destroyed the entire plant and killed 27 workers. It also blew out windows and caused fires six miles from ground zero. Goodbye, Malibu!
The U.S. Coast Guard, stretched as it is with 9/11 security detail, is charged with monitoring LNG terminals and carrier ships. It is worth noting that at the Savannah, Georgia LNG importation facility, the standing order for Coast Guard personnel in the event of an LNG discharge is to “order the evacuation of all USCG personnel from the affected area.” Will the EIRs include an evacuation plan for Malibu residents?
I also stumbled across Tim Riley’s website at www.timrileylaw.com-the photos there of the
1941 LNG disaster, in which a square mile of Cleveland was virtually incinerated, speak for themselves.
David Wolfberg
Santa Monica