DEQ Rejects Bradwood Landing Demands: Attend Important Upcoming Hearing
Last week, The Oregonian reported that Oregon Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has rejected demands by NorthernStar's Bradwood LNG project to issue an approval of its proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal and pipeline. Instead, DEQ is sticking to its request for additional information about the Bradwood LNG terminal's impacts on salmon and water quality, and stated that NorthernStar's failure to produce the key information "will likely lead to a denial of certification." This is a huge setback for Texas-based proponents of Bradwood LNG who are seeking to rush their project ahead in a collapsing LNG market.
You can read the story here: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2010/0/oregon_deq_stymies_lng_termina.html
More Importantly, you can make your voice heard! Please attend an upcoming DEQ hearing near Astoria!
On March 3rd, DEQ will be holding an informational meeting about Bradwood LNG. The agency will be taking public comments on air and water quality issues during the meeting. DEQ has the ability to stop this project altogether by denying its certification under the Clean Water Act. Multiple states, including recent decisions by Maryland and New York, have denied LNG terminals outright using this authority.
DEQ Bradwood Meeting
March 3, 2010. 6 - 9 PM
Knappa High School Gymnasium
41535 Old Hwy 30
(Knappa is about 20 miles east of Astoria on Hwy 30)
This is a great opportunity for us to tell DEQ why Oregonians need the agency to deny the Bradwood project. We are urging everyone to attend and bring friends and family with you! Let's send a message to DEQ that we want them to deny the Bradwood LNG terminal altogether.
Tell DEQ:
- The Bradwood project will harm salmon, water quality, and fishing on the Columbia River
- The Bradwood project and its linked Palomar pipeline will damage hundreds of streams, creeks, rivers and wetlands.
- The project will also harm family farms, nurseries, forests, and the jobs that they provide throughout the state of Oregon.
- We are fed up with wasting our time and resources on a project that Oregon doesn't need, and that will obviously violate the Clean Water Act.
- Recently, the states of Maryland and New York denied LNG Projects using their Clean Water Act authority. Is Maryland's fishery really more worth protecting than our own? We don't think so.
- DEQ should protect the Columbia and deny the project, following the example of Maryland and New York in protecting our resources.
- The Bradwood LNG terminal will dump tons of greenhouse gases and other air pollution into the local environment and our atmosphere. If Oregon is serious about meeting our goals for reducing climate-changing emissions, we need to say no to the Bradwood project.
For More Information:
Assoicated Press Article 2.23.10
The Daily Astorian Article 2.23.10
DEQ Response to NorthernStar's Demands 2.17.10
Dan Serres, Columbia Riverkeeper (503) 890-2441 Email: dserres@gmail.com
Oregon warns permit for natural gas port unlikely
by By JEFF BARNARD, AP Environmental Writer
Posted on February 23, 2010 at 7:27 AM
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GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- Oregon environmental regulators have told the Texas developers of the Bradwood Landing liquefied natural gas terminal on the Columbia River that a crucial water quality permit will likely be denied.
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Director Dick Petersen told Northern Star Natural Gas in a Feb. 17 letter that the company still has not provided three-dimensional computer modeling and sampling that are "essential" to evaluate erosion, water quality and fish habitat issues.
The deadline for a decision on the Clean Water Act certificate is May 8.
Northern Star spokesman Joe Desmond said they are evaluating the letter and have yet to decide whether to take the department's advice to withdraw and then resubmit their application to avoid a denial.
Houston-based Northern Star had hoped to start work in December on Oregon's first LNG port, located about 30 miles from the mouth of the Columbia River.
The letter said the two-dimensional modeling that Northern Star has offered is not adequate to evaluate the project's impact on the Columbia River estuary, and that water sampling is needed from peak flows during March and low flows during August. It also noted that the request had been repeated last November, with no result.
"It is our determination that DEQ is unable to adequately evaluate impacts to water quality from the project as proposed without this information," Petersen wrote.
The department said it also would like to see the outcome of the evaluation that NOAA Fisheries Service is doing on potential harm to threatened and endangered salmon, known as a biological opinion. It noted that the agency had already found inadequate an environmental review by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The states of Oregon and Washington, Columbia Riverkeepers and the Nez Perce Tribe are appealing the commission's approval of the project, arguing it made the decision before environmental reviews and state permits were in.
Bradwood dealt triple permit blow
LNG?company told water quality permit will likely be denied
By CASSANDRA PROFITA
The Daily Astorian
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has rebuffed three "demands" from the Bradwood Landing liquefied natural gas project developer and warned that a key water quality permit will likely be denied.
DEQ's Director Dick Pedersen told Northern Star Natural Gas Inc. in a Feb. 17 letter that the company still has not provided three-dimensional modeling of the LNG terminal's water-quality impacts, even though the state has been requesting the data since 2007.
The modeling data are "essential" to DEQ's permitting decision, he wrote, as they provide "biologically meaningful information" for the state's evaluation of the $650 million development, proposed for a site on the Columbia River 25 miles east of Astoria.
As part of DEQ's Clean Water Act certification process, regulators evaluate the terminal's impact on erosion, water quality and fish habitat, Pedersen wrote.
"The absence of critical information and time to analyze information that might be provided ... will likely lead to a denial of certification,"?he wrote.
The DEQ's deadline for a decision on the Clean Water Act certificate is May 8. Pedersen gave NorthernStar the option of withdrawing and resubmitting its application in order to do additional data collection.
Northern Star spokesman Joe Desmond said they are evaluating the letter and have yet to decide whether to take the department's advice to withdraw and then resubmit their application to avoid a denial.
Houston-based NorthernStar had hoped to start work in December on Oregon's first LNG terminal.
Another potential setback to the company's progress came in the form of a legal brief submitted by attorney generals from 15 other states supporting Oregon's argument in its lawsuit against the Federal Energy Regulatory?Commission. The state's lawsuit, backed by the state of Washington, the?Nez Perce Tribe and the anti-LNG group Columbia Riverkeeper, stems from FERC's 2008 approval of the Bradwood project, which challengers argue was wrongly made before required environmental and state permits were approved.
Fifteen states, including Louisiana, Mississippi and Ohio, filed a brief supporting the appellants and indicating the case affects the interests of other states, too.
Meanwhile, the federal fisheries agency that is considering the?Bradwood project's impacts on threatened and endangered species has backed out of the lawsuit. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service had taken the position before the Ninth?Circuit Court of Appeals that FERC shouldn't have approved the Bradwood facility before the federal endangered species act review of the project was complete.
NOAA only recently began the Endangered Species Act consultation and has not yet issued a biological opinion on the impacts of the project. According to Pedersen, that is also a factor in DEQ's water quality permitting decision.
NorthernStar made "three principal demands" of DEQ?in a meeting Jan. 20, according to?Pedersen's letter:
- to drop or delay the deadline on its request for three-dimensional computer modeling;
• to make its permitting decision without the federal biological opinion on the project's impact on threatened and endangered species; and
- to agree to issue a permit by July.
Pedersen said his department would like to see the outcome of the evaluation that NOAA is doing on potential harm to threatened and endangered salmon. NOAA?has also asked NorthernStar for 3-D modeling of water quality impacts.
DEQ is holding an informational meeting on the Bradwood project at 6 p.m. March 3 in the Knappa High School Gymnasium.
Columbia River LNG terminal plan hits Oregon DEQ permit obstacle
By Ted Sickinger, The Oregonian
February 19, 2010, 8:25PM
Oregon environmental regulators have told the developer of a proposed liquefied natural gas import terminal on the Columbia River that they will likely deny the project's water quality permit in May in the absence of substantially more data on potential impacts to the river.
The demands highlight an ongoing regulatory showdown between the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, federal fisheries regulators and NorthernStar Natural Gas Inc. The Houston-based company has proposed building an LNG terminal at an abandoned mill site on the lower Columbia River, 25 miles east of Astoria.
The Bradwood Landing project and two other LNG terminal proposals have prompted a firestorm of protest from community members, environmentalists and landowners along the pipelines proposed to serve them. Opponents say the terminals and pipelines are unnecessary and pose significant environmental, property rights and public safety problems.
Project developers, backed by trade unions, say that they've proposed adequate mitigation measures and that the terminals would diversify the region's gas supply and bring much needed jobs and tax revenue to rural communities.
The DEQ has consistently said it doesn't have enough information to make the call, only to be rebuffed by the company. This week, the agency wrote NorthernStar, asking it to provide more detailed information about how the construction and operation of the terminal would change the Columbia's water velocity, turbidity and temperature during spring and late summer, when salmon are migrating.
Capturing and analyzing the data could be a time-consuming and expensive process at a point when competing LNG proposals in Warrenton and Coos Bay are nipping at Bradwood's heels in the race for full regulatory approval.
NorthernStar also has no assurance that the data won't show significant impacts on the river or turn up new biological wrinkles that need to be studied. The process has already consumed four years and tens of millions of dollars from the company's investors. And it is playing out against an industry backdrop that makes the project's economics uncertain, including burgeoning domestic gas supplies and a volatile supply of LNG in the Pacific basin to supply a West Coast terminal.
LNG is natural gas that has been superchilled to a dense liquid for transportation on ocean-going tankers. The liquid is offloaded and stored in tanks at import terminals, then reheated and piped to market or underground storage.
NorthernStar officials did not return calls Friday seeking comment. But DEQ director Dick Pedersen said in his letter that the company has made a series of "demands," principally to see the agency either drop its request for three-dimensional modeling of the river or approve a conditional certificate, with additional studies to come later.
The DEQ, however, is sticking to its guns. The agency says the scope and complexity of the LNG project is unique and it needs the best possible data upfront.
"We have to do this ahead of time," said Nina DeConcini, the agency's Northwest region administrator. "We've never done one of these projects. ... We don't have any idea what it will do. We have some information, but we know we need more."
Bradwood has already withdrawn and resubmitted its application for a water quality certificate twice. In one instance, the DEQ was approaching its one-year statutory deadline for a decision without the data it needed to make a decision.
The DEQ's letter this week said the company has submitted some information responsive to its request but it has included "large amounts of unrequested information that is generally not relevant" to the water quality analysis.
This time, the DEQ is supposed to make a decision by May 7. The agency told NorthernStar that it could withdraw and resubmit again. Otherwise, the absence of information "will likely lead to a denial of certification."
The DEQ is also waiting for the National Marine Fisheries Service's opinion on whether the terminal jeopardizes endangered species. NMFS had requested the same data as the DEQ. But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission effectively twisted the fisheries agency's arm in December to get on with its process, with or without the information. Bradwood hailed that decision as a major milestone.
"FERC does not oversee the state in that realm," DeConcini said Friday. "It is our determination to make."
The DEQ said NorthernStar controls the clock. Data gathering and analysis could take until late fall. If NorthernStar then resubmits its application, the DEQ has a year to decide.
NorthernStar hoped to receive state approvals and begin construction of Bradwood this year. The project faces other hurdles, including the state of Oregon's challenge of the terminal's license, pending in federal court. The state says FERC erred by licensing the terminal before state agencies issued their permits.
The DEQ will hold a public meeting on the Bradwood project at 6 p.m. March 3 at the Knappa High School gymnasium in Astoria. The agency will share information and seek public input.
-- Ted Sickinger
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