My letter to The Daily Astorian: Sensible or a blatant delay tactic? Whatchathink?
Friday, June 01, 2007
Clatsop County's administration and the commissioners that represent this county's citizens deserve praise for their professional and transparent handling of the Bradwood liquefied natural gas land use application. They've posted relevant documents on the county Web site, resisted taking sides, and, until now have been reluctant to rush the process.
Unfortunately, Clatsop County's apparent commitment to an open public process is under pressure. On May 17, the county issued a press release announcing that its planning commission would hold public hearings on the proposed Bradwood LNG import terminal on July 10.
Five days later, another press release appeared which listed the firms the county had under consideration to perform an independent public safety assessment of the project and deliver findings and recommendations by July 31.
How can the public be expected to participate in this process in an informed manner if vital safety information is not available until 21 days after the public hearing?
The county should postpone any hearing on this matter until the public, and the planning commissioners, have adequate time to review the safety assessment. Information from independent experts on the environmental, economic and safety aspects of the proposal should also be distributed in advance of any hearings. This is clearly reasonable.
Clatsop County's planning decision is about all that remains of local control over the siting of this type of fossil fuel infrastructure.
I'm amazed that an independent economic assessment is not yet under way. The county should insist that the applicant, NorthernStar, pay for such a study. There is honest disagreement about this project's benefits versus costs to Clatsop County. If we would see a net loss in dollars and jobs, shouldn't the planners and the public be aware of this information, from an unbiased source, prior to making far-reaching decisions?
There is no doubt that NorthernStar wants to rush this through. But I believe that our county government can resist the developer's demands. With our economy, our security and the quality of our lives at stake, well-informed and thoughtful deliberation is in order.
Peter Huhtala
Astoria
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5 comments:
And then there was "Natural Gas Hydrate".
Quite frankly I would like to see "County" slap an injunction on any further development of LNG on the "LCR" until a concise and thorough report has been made and presented on the merits of the product (NGH)and technology as it really makes the scope of what NSNG and others propose appear to be archaic, outdated and much more dangerous.
Postpone the hearings?
Abso-damned-lultely and as long as it takes to fully inform the citizens of Clatsop County of what they are truly in for.
I would even like to see a layman's breakdown of the alleged millions of dollars in tax revenue these LNG Speculator/Pirates are touting in their "Forward Reaching Statements"
A few years back I heard about the fishermen off Vancouver Island who hauled up a tow of methane hydrate: http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17697/newsDate/10-Sep-2002/story.htm
Interesting stuff, but you know what, it all contributes to global warming, and we had better change our climate changing ways ASAP.
Perhaps an accurate view and asessment of the actual emissions from LNG in our area might get people to pay a bit more attention.
"Pro-LNG" says it's all clean and needed.
Is it?
Really?
For sure it's not clean. LNG is pretty much on a par with coal as currently used in the United States arcording to a Carnegie-Mellon study of the total impacts of each on global warming. It's worse than coal, though, if we're tapping the Asian LNG sources that might otherwise be available to China. If we outcompete China by driving up the price of lNG (and incidentally the price to US consumers) then China will turn to using coal with antiquated technology, fouling the world's air and dangerously warming the planet.
Methane hydrate or natural gas hydrate is an interesting possibilty both as a fuel source and as a form for safer transport. However, the combustion or atmospheric release of this stuff still contributes to global warming.
I convinced that we must make the choices necessary to slow or stop our contributions to global warming. We're not all of a sudden going to stop driving our cars and motorcycles, but we can say no to more fossil fuel infrastructure. Oh, wait, I'm still not sure if the energy bill allows us to say no... Heck, say no anyway and the gas and oil corporations will think that we know something they don't. Fat chance.
PBS&J?
This company actually caters to "The Energy Industry" as architects, engineers, consultants and here Derickson wants to hire them to analyze "Public Safety Issues" regarding Bradwood Landing/Northern Star Natural Gas.
A cursery review of this company shows they are under litigation for ethics and other violations all over the U.S., it would seem.
The clincher was this morning's sound byte from Clatsop County Commissioner Richard Lee who animatedly insists on paying these people whatever it takes to get this review done by a set date in June?
We best be breaking out the "Vaesline and Condoms" because it appears, once again "Foxes" are being hired to evaluate the actions of just more "Foxes" controlling the hen house and the citizens of Clatsop County are about to get screwed once again by this "So-called Leadership".
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