SOUTH SHORE

Most at Port Ambrose hearing slam plan

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One after another, for four hours, speakers at a hearing last Wednesday in Jamaica, Queens lined up to decry a proposal to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in the Atlantic Ocean 18.5 miles southeast of Jones Beach.

The hearing, one of two that federal agencies convened for public comment on an environmental impact report about the terminal, began at 6 p.m. on Jan. 7 at an airport hotel in Jamaica. The second hearing took place the next night at a hotel in Eatontown, N.J.

Despite the frigid weather outside, several hundred people, including many from Long Island’s South Shore, crammed into a ballroom at the Hilton New York JFK Airport. The vast majority — as evidenced by speakers’ comments and the crowd’s loud vocal reactions to their statements — had to come to protest the terminal, known as Port Ambrose.

About 75 took to a lectern and microphone to criticize the proposed LNG terminal, which Liberty Natural Gas, LLC, a New Jersey company that Toronto hedge fund West Face Capital Inc. controls, is seeking federal and state approvals to build. They included South Shore residents, elected officials, environmentalists, liberal activists, fishermen and others. About eight spoke in favor of Port Ambrose, including union leaders, representatives of an energy industry lobby and a Queens Chamber of Commerce leader.

Three federal officers who will weigh in on Liberty’s deepwater port license application — Yvette Fields, director of the Maritime Administration Office of Deepwater Ports and Offshore Activities; Curtis Borland, acting chief of the U.S. Coast Guard Deepwater Ports Standards Division; and Jodi McDonald, chief of the Army Corps of Engineers New York District Regulatory Branch — listened throughout the four-hour meeting. So did a representative of Tetra Tech, Inc., the contractor that prepared the environmental impact report for Liberty. Professional facilitator Bill Olsen ran the meeting and attempted to stop speakers who exceeded a three-minute limit. The meeting proceeded mostly civilly, except for a brief altercation between audience members, which NYPD officers who were stationed outside the door broke up.

Objections to Port Ambrose centered on environmental, safety and economic concerns. Many pointed out that the site for the proposed LNG terminal overlaps with that for a proposed wind turbine farm, and they argued in favor of renewable energy sources over fossil fuels, which contribute to climate change. Many also cautioned that an industrial accident or terrorist attack could occur on LNG transport ships, which carry tens of millions of gallons of the potentially combustible material. Others expressed doubts that Port Ambrose would provide the economic benefits to the region that Liberty has claimed.

Among the officials to voice their opposition were Todd Kaminsky and Phillip Goldfeder, state assemblyman from Long Beach and Far Rockaway; Donovan Richards Jr., a New York City councilman from Queens and chairman of the Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection; four members of the Long Beach City Council; and Denise Ford, a Nassau County legislator from Long Beach. All of them are Democrats, though Ford caucuses with Republicans in the County Legislature.

“I’m here bringing the unanimous opposition from Long Beach City Council to this project,” said Anthony Eramo, president of the Council. “…The potential for a disaster at this facility is huge. Whether it’s an accident, a mechanical failure — obviously it’s a terror target or could be a potential terror target — and again, an extreme weather event. We are gravely concerned about what this facility would do, or could do, should there be some sort of accident.

“Our economy certainly needs good, well-paying, permanent jobs, but this is not the way to get there,” Eramo continued. “In this day and age, we need investment in conservation and renewable resources — and those are the green jobs that will last for decades. Our energy choices do matter. We need to move away from fossil fuels. We need to protect our planet. And our children, and our children’s children, are counting on us.”

Ron Benenati, an editor of sustainablebusiness.com, said that methane, the primary component of natural gas, is “barely better, if at all, than coal as a fuel, as far as climate change goes.”

He argued that it is past time for the United States to move away from fossil fuels. “If the typewriter industry had as much money and power as the fossil fuel industry, we would not have word processing today,” Benenati said.

Nicole Minichiello framed a similar argument in personal terms. “I’m married and … I’m considering whether to have children. It puts fear in my heart to think of the way the world might be in 10, 20 or 30 years … This is our world. It’s our only world, the only place we can live, and we are using our resources as quickly as we possibly can …To think we want to build something else to facilitate this is mind-blowing.”

But Scott Winter, president and business manager of the International Union of Operating Engineers’ Local 25 Marine Division, said that while he favors renewable energy, he does not believe it is yet possible to completely do away with fossil fuels.

“There’s a lot of hypocrisy in this room,” Winter said. “There’s not a person in this room right now that is not wearing something — either coloring in their hair, or shoes on their feet, or eyeglasses … or lipstick — that is not coming from fossil fuels. Not the roads that you drove on, not the tires that you use, not the gas in your vehicle. We are all reliant on four fossil fuels.”

Winter also claimed that Port Ambrose would help create 800 good-paying jobs, citing a Liberty figure, though he acknowledged that these would be temporary construction jobs. In an email to the Herald in December, a Liberty spokesperson said Port Ambrose would create 20 permanent jobs.