{"id":221,"date":"2014-07-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/waterkeeperschesapeake.org\/2014\/07\/30\/federal-regulators-set-to-impose-lng-export-facility-on-chesapeake-bay-ignoring-public-outcry-science\/"},"modified":"2019-05-29T20:15:50","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T20:15:50","slug":"federal-regulators-set-to-impose-lng-export-facility-on-chesapeake-bay-ignoring-public-outcry-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/waterkeeperschesapeake.org\/es\/federal-regulators-set-to-impose-lng-export-facility-on-chesapeake-bay-ignoring-public-outcry-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Reguladores federales se disponen a imponer una instalaci\u00f3n de exportaci\u00f3n de GNL en la bah\u00eda de Chesapeake, ignorando la indignaci\u00f3n p\u00fablica y la ciencia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday, June 16 marked the end of a contested 30-day public comment period on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission\u2019s (FERC) draft Environmental Assessment (EA) for the controversial $3.8 billion plan, proposed by Virginia-based Dominion Resources, to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Cove Point<\/a>\u00a0Maryland. Dominion\u2019s plan is to convert an existing import facility into an export facility and to pipe fracked gas from the Marcellus shale to southern Maryland, liquefy it, and export it to be burned in Japan and India.<\/p>\n

\"\"FERC\u2019s environmental assessment has been widely criticized<\/a> for failing to address the project\u2019s role in speeding fracking across Appalachia, worsening the climate crisis, and threatening the safety of nearby residents in Calvert County with potential explosion and fire catastrophes. The facility, located next to a residential community, is only 3 miles from a nuclear power plant and 50 miles from Washington DC.<\/p>\n

More than 150,000 comments<\/a> flooded FERC, arguing that it is clear that without analyzing the reasonably foreseeable cumulative impacts this project would have on the environment throughout the 64,000 square mile Chesapeake Bay watershed, FERC\u2019s determination of a \u201cFinding of No Significant Impact\u201d is arbitrary and capricious and violates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).<\/p>\n

The U.S. Environment Protection Agency\u2019s (EPA) says that FERC should weigh gas production stimulus effect of the Cove Point export facility. In its comments filed on Monday, the EPA states \u201cBoth FERC and DOE [U.S. Department of Energy] have recognized that an increase in natural gas exports will result in increased production.\u201d But somehow FERC concludes “it is not feasible to more specifically evaluate localized environmental impacts.”<\/p>\n

Upstream Impacts<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is clear that the Cove Point export facility will drive expansion of fracking for natural gas across the entire Chesapeake region in Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and in Maryland, where no drilling has yet occurred.\u00a0 The export valve will open and the race to frack will explode. In many states, fracking has resulted in drinking water contamination, air pollution, fish kills, illness, forest fragmentation and even earthquakes. In addition, each fracked well requires millions of gallons of water, often depleting local waterways, and produces millions of gallons of toxic and radioactive wastewater.<\/p>\n

This project will mean more landscapes and communities will be transformed with fracking wells, pipelines, compressor stations, and new roads carrying thousands of trucks, turning once rural and pristine areas \u2013 including farms and public parks and forests — into industrial sacrifice zones so energy companies can ship our natural gas elsewhere. Further, the nation\u2019s largest estuary, the Chesapeake Bay, would be highway for thousand-foot long tankers to transport the liquefied gas, exposing the treasured Bay to invasive species and worsening the \u201cDead Zone\u201d in the Bay through dumping of polluted ballast water.<\/p>\n

FERC has shown it rubber stamps projects and is beholden to the gas industry by already approving a new compressor station<\/a> in rural Myersville, Maryland, despite intense community opposition. This 16,000-horsepower compressor station that Dominion wants to construct, will be located just a mile from an elementary school. Next up would be an expanded compressor station in northern Virginia.<\/p>\n

A major Pennsylvania fracking company \u2013 Cabot Oil & Gas \u2013 has already committed to pipe gas to Cove Point for export. Dominion\u2019s plan includes connecting to the interstate natural gas transmission systems of Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Company, Columbia Gas Transmission and DTI which would pipe gas to Cove Point from a wide range of regions in the U.S.. Pipelines, which are also under FERC\u2019s jurisdiction, are being proposed throughout the Susquehanna River basin, and across the Gunpowder River watershed \u2013 which includes the drinking water source for the city of Baltimore \u2013 all to pipe natural gas to Cove Point. These pipelines, which inevitably leak and rupture causing dangerous explosions and fires, would snake through our waterways, drinking water sources, backyards and farms. Yet, the\u00a0EA\u00a0fails to analyze impacts of natural gas development, despite information about where Dominion’s customers will source the gas and plans for new pipelines designed to shuttle gas to\u00a0Cove\u00a0Point.<\/p>\n

The fact that FERC did not relate the facility at Cove Point to the \u201cfracking process\u201d and analyze the consequences is a fundamental flaw, making the analysis meaningless. The over 150,000 comments that were sent to FERC on Monday say loudly and clearly that they don\u2019t buy FERC\u2019s meaningless assessment.<\/p>\n

\"\"What You Can Do<\/strong><\/p>\n

The fight against<\/a> this fracked gas export facility has been long, but it\u2019s not over. The week of June 16, several organizations and individuals participated in a to reach out across the Chesapeake Bay region and the nation to decry the unchecked march to export our natural gas at the expense of our rivers, streams, bays, forests, farms, and communities. The week of June 21, hundreds of people joined a week-long picket line at FERC<\/a> to protest the rubber stamping of this project. On July 13, thousands of people gathered in Washington DC to rally and march against fracked gas exports<\/a> at Cove Point and beyond.<\/p>\n

To learn more, go to www.stopcovepoint.org<\/a> and follow #stopcovepoint on Facebook and Twitter. Also, go to www.stopgasexports.org<\/a> and follow #stopgasexports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

El lunes 16 de junio finaliz\u00f3 un controvertido per\u00edodo de 30 d\u00edas para comentarios p\u00fablicos sobre el borrador de la Evaluaci\u00f3n Ambiental (EA) de la Comisi\u00f3n Federal Reguladora de Energ\u00eda (FERC) para el controvertido plan $ de 3.800 millones de d\u00f3lares, propuesto por Dominion Resources, con sede en Virginia, para exportar gas natural licuado (GNL) desde Cove Point Maryland. El plan de Dominion consiste en convertir una planta de importaci\u00f3n existente en\u2026 Lee mas<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":219,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[49,45,48,47],"class_list":["post-221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-natural-gas-lng-export","tag-fracking","tag-hot-stories","tag-natural-gas-lng-export","tag-press-statements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/waterkeeperschesapeake.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/waterkeeperschesapeake.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/waterkeeperschesapeake.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waterkeeperschesapeake.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waterkeeperschesapeake.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/waterkeeperschesapeake.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waterkeeperschesapeake.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/waterkeeperschesapeake.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waterkeeperschesapeake.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waterkeeperschesapeake.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"gracias","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}