Plans resurface for Liquefied Natural Gas project off Long Beach

Critics blast LNG proposal, call on federal officials to deny application

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A plan to build a liquefied natural gas terminal off the coast of Long Beach has been submitted to the U.S. Maritime Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard for review, and local environmentalists are calling on the federal agencies to reject the proposal.

On April 3, more than 30 environmental organizations — including County Legislator Dave Denenberg’s Taskforce against the LNG Island and the Surfrider Foundation — called on the federal agencies to deny an application first submitted in 2010 by New Jersey-based Liberty Natural Gas LLC for a license to construct a natural gas offloading system roughly 19 miles south of Long Beach and 30 miles east of Monmouth Beach, N.J.

Called the Liberty Offshore Project, the terminal would deliver much-needed natural gas to the region, according to Natural Gas LLC, which described natural gas as the “fuel of choice” due to its economic, operational and environmental advantages.

The company said that demand in New York — the fourth-largest consumer of natural gas in the country — is expected to grow by 5 percent by 2020, with about 80 percent of that growth in New York City and on Long Island.

But environmentalists contend that a terminal would negatively impact the environment, increase the region’s dependence on foreign fuel and create the potential for an offshore catastrophe or terrorist attacks.

Last Year, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie blasted the proposal, and vetoed it under the federal Deepwater Port Act. But according to Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, the Maritime Administration denounced Christie’s call on the agency to deny the application for the terminal’s construction, saying that the veto was “not legally significant.” Zipf said that the agency is now considering a revised application that would move the port closer to New York — and, ironically, right in the middle of a proposed offshore wind farm 13 miles off the Rockaway peninsula.

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