An unfortunate test case

	Multiple nearby hazards. The area near the proposed LNG terminal has many industrial hazards, including storage tanks, pipelines, hazardous materials terminals and oil refineries. The approximate hazard locations are shown above. A pipeline (yellow) would connect the LNG terminal to the ConocoPhillips refinery. Medium Res Copy - Higher Res Copy

For the summary version of Bry Myown's report, which appears in the May 2005 issue of The Southern Sierran, go here.

By Bry Myown

Mitsubishi and its new partner, ConocoPhillips, are planning a liquefied natural gas terminal project that would read like a bad joke if the Administration and Port of Long Beach hadn't made it into a deadly serious national test case. Here's what's wrong with the Long Beach project:
Reduced contractual oversight.

LNG importers have historically operated under long-term contracts that guarantee investor returns—but Mitsubishi wants to purchase up to 10% of California's gas on a spot market. That would be economically risky and increase exposure to piracy, crew infiltration and human error.

On-site refining and vehicle fuel manufacturing.

Natural gas is typically processed to meet purchaser specifications before liquefaction—but because Mitsubishi wants to play the spot market, it would have to strip ethane and propane in order to meet California pipeline and vehicle fuel standards. Mitsubishi undoubtedly hopes to profit from both operations as well as lure investors and regulators with promises of flexibility and "clean" vehicle fuel. It will add two hazardous operations that are not part of any other LNG facility to the worst possible LNG site.

"Hot" gas.

High ethane and propane content gas is not what has been studied in large-scale spill tests or modeled in safety analyses. The recent Sandia Laboratories study commissioned by FERC, for example, acknowledges that accidents or attacks involving such gas will have higher consequences than its predictions—but we have no idea how much hotter the gas or higher those consequences might be.
4.6 miles of ethane and propane pipelines through neighborhoods.

In addition to constructing a 2.3-mile methane outflow pipeline from the terminal to the SoCal Gas interchange, Mitsubishi wants to construct 4.6 miles of ethane and propane pipelines to ConocoPhillips' Carson refinery. These pipelines through densely populated neighborhoods would only be buried 3' deep.

Smallest site.

The country's 4 existing land-based LNG terminals are in Everett (Boston) MA, Cove Point MD, Elba Island GA and Lake Charles LA. Only Everett has operated continuously, while the rest were mothballed within less than 2 years and have since been reopened. Only Everett is in a populated urban area, while the others occupy remote sites of over 100 acres that are part of wholly owned parcels ranging from 394-1017 acres. The proposed Long Beach LNG site is 27 acres, or 25% smaller than even the Everett facility.

Most maritime traffic.

The Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles routinely trade status as the nation's 1st and 2nd busiest ports and together form an integrated complex that is the 3rd largest in the world. Both are undergoing expansion to triple throughput by 2015.

Hazardous surroundings.

Half of all Port of Long Beach imports and exports (on a tonnage basis) are crude oil and petroleum products. The POLB/POLA complex has 16 liquid bulk petroleum berths, extensive oil pipelines and an in-ports storage capacity of almost 11M barrels, with more petroleum projects planned.

Multiple, reciprocal hazards.

The project would store almost 85M gallons of liquefied natural gas (condensed by a factor of 600) atop the THUMS seismic fault and directly between the Palos Verdes fault (2.5 miles) and the Newport-Inglewood fault (4.4 miles) that produced the city's devastating 1933 earthquake. It would be in a liquefaction zone vulnerable to 27 faults within 100 miles and subject to a local tsunami slip-fault and remote tsunami damage from Pacific Rim quakes.

The proposed Terminal Island site is the former mouth of the Los Angeles River and is now a FEMA flood zone adjacent to the Flood Control. It is manmade landfill that was appended to Terminal Island when the river was diverted, and it would support 316M pounds of LNG plus concrete and steel tanks.

The site sits in the middle of Wilmington Oil Field, where 1400 oil wells produce approximately 40,000 barrels daily and natural gas is constantly flared. Oil extraction caused local subsidence up to 27' (18' on the property) and split the underlying land into manmade "fault blocks" barely wider than the site itself. It is literally supported by constant, pressurized water injection.

Prime terrorist target.

The Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles handle 70% of West Coast trade (including Canada and Mexico) and move approximately 35% of the nation's waterborne and 42% of the nation's container cargo, with an annual declared Customs value in excess of $220B and a GDP contribution of $1 trillion and growing. Because San Pedro Bay offers the lowest rail rates, most container handling infrastructure and most "supership" deep water berths, its goods movement could not be absorbed elsewhere, and even temporary port closure could cause national economic meltdown. Both bridges to the I-710, Alameda Corridor/rail loading facilities and significant oil pipelines terminate within 2 miles of the proposed project site.

Hostility from new sources.

West Coast LNG terminals will import from new fossil fuel exporting nations. Likely sources include Indonesia, with its Banda Aceh province separatist movement, Sakhalin (Russia), where indigenous rights groups and non-governmental organizations are currently protesting LNG exports, and South America, where planned LNG export operations have already led to protestors' deaths and the forced resignation of Bolivia's president. Other U.S. LNG sources are in the Middle East or sub-Saharan Africa, already declared to be of "strategic military importance" to the U.S. Two-thirds of the world's LNG is shipped through the Malaccan Straits, where Commander Fargo of the Pacific Fleet has already suggested the U.S. should deploy Marines.

Dense population.

The Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles employ approximately 25,000 ILWU longshore workers. Residential population within two miles of the project would be almost 20,000 by the time the project opens, and an additional 27,000 employees work within that distance of the site every day. Some census tracts near the project or along the proposed pipeline routes approach densities of 50,000 persons per square mile.

If the Bush Administration is willing to site LNG terminals under these conditions, there is nowhere they won't put LNG terminals—and if they can force something this bad on California, there is no bad energy source they won't force on us next..