Update: Save the Bay launching anti-LNG media blitz
6:30 PM Fri, Nov 27, 2009 | Permalink
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Courtesy Save the Bay Save the Bay plans to begin displaying this billboard beginning Monday. Save the Bay is posed to begin a high-profile campaign to rally Rhode Islanders against a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal proposed for Mount Hope Bay. The $12,000 effort will feature advertisements on radio, in Newport and Jamestown newspapers, and on billboards on Routes 195 and 24. The subject of the protest is a plan by Weaver's Cove Energy, co-owned by Poten & Partners and Amerada Hess Corp., to build a $700 million offloading facility in the middle of the bay. The company says it will bring cheaper energy to the region. But its effects will also reverberate to Narragansett Bay, where the passage of LNG supertankers will require dredging and, beginning in 2015, temporary bans on boating along the passage between Newport and Jamestown, and periodic closures of the Mount Hope Bridge and Pell Bridge. The radio ads feature a cascade of voices that contend that the project will be bad for business and tourism and express disbelief about "tanker security zones that disrupt boaters and fishermen 140 times a year without warning." One of the commercials is available here. "We've fought for years and spent for millions preserving Mount Hope Bay. For this?" one man says. George "Ted" Gehrig, president of Weaver's Cove, reacted to the campaign Friday night by saying that the regulatory process for approving the project is designed to protect the public "and it should be allowed to work. We'd love to sit down with Save the Bay and discuss the issues and talk about the facts." The Save the Bay campaign comes five weeks after the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston ruled that Rhode Island's Coastal Resources Management Council lost its chance to rule on the project because it waited too long to hold hearings, instead demanding information from Weaver's Cove that the company was not required to supply. That decision "certainly was a wake-up call for a lot of people. It has been characterized as de facto approval by the state of Rhode Island, and it was something people were quite shocked to hear," said Save the Bay spokesman John Martin. Save the Bay has been warning about the project for years. The new campaign is being inaugurated because an environmental impact statement on the project is expected to be released in December, said Jonathan Stone, the organization's executive director. In addition, federal hearings on the proposal, before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), could begin as early as February. "FERC, by statute, has a public comment period that typically falls within 60 days of the release of the draft environmental impact statement. It's very important that we turn out a strong public showing at those hearings, and we want to be sure the public is well informed prior to that," said Stone. "A strong public showing is one of the ways the LNG proposal could be stopped," said Martin. On June 30, 2005, FERC approved an earlier version of the Weaver's Cove project for Fall River that also would have disrupted ship and vehicle traffic in Rhode Island. As part of the effort to thwart the new version of the plan, Save the Bay's Website, www.SaveBay.org, has been transformed into an action center for people opposed to the project. "What we hear back [from the public] is what do we do? Now we're ready to provide tools on our website to circulate petitions and to send email or regular mail to the Congressional delegation," said Martin. "Now that we've finally begun to restore Mount Hope Bay from decades of abuse from sewage and power plants," one portion of the website says, "Hess wants to take it away from the public and pollute it with a massive LNG platform. We can't let that happen." "The reality is, we have to do something," Stone said. In the case of the coastal council, "CRMC elected a legal strategy that, with hindsight, proved to be ineffective," he said. As a result, "Rhode Island has lost an important tool in fighting the project." (This story was originally posted at 3:34 p.m.) 
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Save the Bay. Do you pay taxes on your property?
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As a RI taxpayer it is difficult to say do not invest $700 million in construction in our area. This is a huge opportunity for taxes and jobs. I believe the Bay has been saved. We should redirect our focus on Save the State.
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wow, some new business for RI?
beter squash it good!
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It is about time we had a vigorous campaign to stop LNG. Thank you Save the Bay. This is likened to David vs. Goliath. The Hess campaign has $1,000,000 to push it through and who knows which pockets are being lined in the process. Unfortunately, our Providence Journal has shamefully endorsed the project. Of course, they are owned by the Belo Corporation from Texas, as is Hess Oil. Our quality of life as we know it, along our pristine Bay, will be irrevocably destroyed. Citizens, stand up and protest! We are running out of time!
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LNG is clean, low cost, domestic energy. There are already moving security zones every time a gas tanker comes up the bay. I sail my boat in other parts of the Bay when they are transiting. Few will notice any inconvenience. STB is being over reactionary on this one, and is very close to loosing me as a long time supporter if they keep up this nonsense.
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The intransit problems are minor compared to the dangerous degradation of Mount Hope Bay. The proposed huge pier and the accompanying 4.2 mile under the bay bed pipe will disturb and degrade 73 acres. The tankers are roughly 1000ft by 120 ft by about 70 feet and any idiot from 360 degrees around can attack. The shore of Gardners Neck Swansea, the Brayton Point power plant and Fall River are only 5,000 ft away. Go on a search engineer. I used google and input" LNG Everett MA". About 8 articles down select "LNG Vessels are an obvious terrotist target". In addition to degraded and probably ruined shellfish and flounders a lot of peoples life are at stake
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Pure and simple: Hess wants to capture some of the New England market for natural gas. There is no shortage of supply, and new facilities in Massachusetts and New Brunswick have enhanced the security of that supply. So no matter what anyone says, the only "need" is for Hess to grow sales, which will support their stock price and make their managers look good (and get bonuses!)
I like making money, but I have a few problems with this one.
Point 1: Hess and Proten are not Rhode Island Companies, they are not Massachusetts companies, so this isn't about local ownership creating wealth in the region. Hess and Proten profits don't say here, they go to Texas where Hess is headquartered.
Point 2:Hess LNG comes from South America and the Caribbean. It is not "domestic energy." LNG is less efficient than natural gas because it has to be compressed,frozen, and then regasified before it can be put into the pipe line for sale.
Point 3: Project will be in Massachusetts, so Rhode Island will get $0 tax revenue.
Rhode Island will get 100% of the business interruption and traffic delays as the Pell and Mt Hope bridges are closed the east passage closed from shore to shore in some places.
So Rhode Island will be asked accept these increased costs and hassles for absolutely no benefit. What part of that sounds like a good deal?
Point 4: The new Brayton Point discharge permit requires them to spend millions on cooling towers.
This to protect valuable winter flounder spawning habitat. This permit went all the way to the US Supreme Court, and took close to 20 years to get in place, at the cost of untold millions of dollars.
Winter flounder don't spawn in deep water and dredging a 70 foot deep turning basin permanently removes that spawning habitat. That habitat was established, by the highest court in our country, to be more valuable than corporate profits for the operators of Brayton Point and low cost energy for the region. By what logic do we do a 100% about face and welcome destruction of something we fought long and hard to preserve and restore?
Point 5: There will be security around the pier and the tankers to keep us "safe" but the heavily armed guys yelling at you and your kids to get out of the way won't be part of the US Coast Guard or your local police force but independent contractors who may not be able to tell the difference between an Optimist rig and an RPG in a sail bag. I believe there is a big difference. one is charges with protecting the ship and the cargo, the others are charged with protecting the citizens.
In the light of the above, I really don't see how it is rational to support the proposal.
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