Faults, earthquakes, LNG, public safety

Faults, earthquakes, LNG, puTo the editor:

The Massachusetts State Geologist has called for a complete and thorough study ofthe faulting and earthquakes in the area of Mt. Hope Bay for Weaver’s Cove Energy’s proposed LNG site. The cumulative work of more than a century shows over 30 known faults project into the bay, and studies within the bay by URI indicate many more.

Furthermore, those exposed at the west side of Mt. Hope Bay are some of the youngest ones known in New England. It is movement along such young faults that causes the zone of earthquakes from Seekonk down the Sakonnet River. One occurred in the river off the south side of the bay in 2002.

The paucity of seismographs in the region results in poor locations for the events and many are probably not recorded. Although these earthquakes are generally small, southem New England is known to have been more active in the 17th and 18 centuries and it is hard to rule out larger ones.

A Corps of Engineers study gives the bay a potential for a magmtude 5.5 earthquake.

Weaver’s Cove Energy claims to have made exhaustive and thorough studies, but I have not been able to find any recognition and evaluation of these known faults or local earthquakes, let alone evidence of exploration for others in their reports; not even references to the relevant geologic and earthquake studies.

The company did do some drilling in the bay, but, as yet, has neither identified the rock encountered nor released the actual boring data that might identify faults.

All faults around a site for a nuclear power plant must be investigated, and if there is evidence showing a potential for active fault movement the site is not developed. The problem of faulting is much different from designing construction to withstand a certain level of seismic motion.

Sites for power plants and dams have been abandoned in New England because of potentially active faults, and similar situations would have precluded sites for underground storage of high-level radioactive waste.

LNG facilities have the potential to cause a great disaster and need to be held to the same standards as other critical facilities for public safety. I concur with the Massachusetts State Geologist that a thorough and complete investigation be made. I would consider anything less imprudent and irresponsible.

Patrick Barosh

Bristol

The writer is a consulting geologist who has studied faults and earthquakes in the region for the U.S. Geological Survey, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Corps of Engineers, and Department of Energy. He believe many earthquakes in the East Bay have not been properly recorded and he would appreciate it if those remembering past earthquakes, which may sound like explosions, to send the approximate date and location and what it felt or sounded like to 103 Aaron Ave., Bristol, RI 02809

blic safety

Battle against LNG readied

Note from Greetings: If approved, this would, every other day, take very dangerous LNG tankers past potential terrorist targets, such as the Naval War College and the Naval Undersea War Center, as well as through very populous areas. In this day and age, and with reports of new terrorist strikes being planned... why would this President and Congress provide another potential terrorist target when it is not needed for energy supply?

It would also dredge up a previously polluted bay and shut down jobs to an entire region that has high unemployment at a time when they are trying to "promote" adding jobs.

Where are you on this, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid? Not to mention our Senators Reed and Whitehouse? (To his credit, Senator Whitehouse has said he opposes this.)

By Phil Zahodiakin , Jamestown Press

Grassroots efforts to block a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal proposed for Mt. Hope Bay have redoubled in the wake of a federal appellate court decision slamming the door on the R.I. agency that reviews applications to dredge in the state’s coastal waters.

Under the proposal from Weaver’s Cove Energy, a subsidiary of Amerada Hess, the LNG terminal would be constructed about a mile from the Fall River shoreline, where a storage facility would be built to receive the gas from an expected 140 supertanker shipments per year.

The East Passage, which the tankers would use to transit into Mt. Hope Bay, is deep enough for the ships, but Weaver’s Cove would have to dredge the channel leading up to the site of the terminal – a project requiring permits from Rhode Island, Massachusetts and the Army Corps of Engineers.

On Oct. 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston ruled that the Coastal Resources Management Council had run out of time to process the permit application from Weaver’s Cove, leaving the application review in the hands of the Army Corps of Engineers.

John Torgan, Narragansett baykeeper and advocacy director for Save the Bay, said the volume of sediment that Weaver’s Cove would have to dredge “is upwards of 3.5 million cubic yards.” However, all but 230,000 cubic yards of the total would be dredged out of Massachusetts waters, and “the Massachusetts review of the permit application for that dredging is alive and ongoing,” he said.

Torgan also said that “there are still some 21 state and federal permits that Weaver’s Cove has to obtain before starting construction.” Moreover, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates natural gas transmission facilities – and which will have the final say on the project – has yet to issue an environmental impact statement for the proposal.

An earlier proposal, which failed to pass U.S. Coast Guard muster, proposed to build the terminal on a shoreline site north of the Braga and Brightman Street Bridges. Weaver’s Cove responded to the Coast Guard’s concerns with its 2008 proposal to site the terminal in the bay.

Save the Bay this week launched a campaign “to make sure that people are aware of the Weaver’s Cove proposal and the EIS, which may be released before the end of the year,” Torgan said. “The EIS will be several ‘phone books’ thick, and we want to equip people with the information they’ll need to provide FERC with informed and appropriate public comments. It’s all part of the overriding goal of our campaign: Preventing this project from going forward.”

To that end, said Save the Bay Communications Director John Martin, the group this Monday started running its campaign messages in newspapers and radio spots. The group also has a commitment for billboard space on Rt. 24 or I-195 – whichever billboard becomes available first.

Additionally, “a number of environmental groups have asked for links to our website,” Martin said, “and we’ll be e-mailing our message to all our members – a constituency of 12,000 people. Our social networks account for many more supporters, and we’ll be reaching out to them as well.”

The website also includes etools that enable people to send letters – or Save the Bay’s recommended letter – to their senators and representatives, Martin said.

“We have a downloadable petition which we’re asking people to circulate in their neighborhoods or their places of worship or anywhere else where people are picking up on our concerns,” he said. “We’re also in the final stages of setting up an online petition. We’re hoping to sustain our amplified campaign all the way up to the EIS hearings, which FERC could open this winter. But, that’s not to say that people haven’t been hearing our message: We were quite encouraged by the strong response of our constituency when they heard about the court decision.”

The decision affirmed a U.S. district court ruling against the CRMC – which, Weaver’s Cove asserted, had waived its right of review by failing to issue a decision on the permit application within the timeframe specified by the federal Coastal Zone Management Act. The CRMC argued that the regulatory clock could not start ticking until the application was complete. But the district court ruled that the timeframe, which is intended to ensure that no individual state can arbitrarily delay a project, had been violated.

CRMC Public Educator and Information Coordinator Laura Ricketson-Dwyer said that the council had not engaged in any “arbitrary” delay.

“We had to know where the dredge material would be going,” she said. “We have a prerequisite regulation requiring applicants to provide a letter of acceptance from the disposal facility.

“We were concerned,” Ricketson Dwyer continued, “because Weaver’s Cove had indicated that the material would be sent out of state, but we didn’t have their plan and, as the responsible state agency, we had to make sure that the material wouldn’t return in Rhode Island. We didn’t want a situation like the infamous New York City ‘garbage barge to nowhere.’ We didn’t want a ‘dredge scow to nowhere.’ So, based on that lack of information, we could not accept the application as complete.”

Michael Rubin, an assistant state attorney general and chief of the environmental unit in the state AG’s office, represented the CRMC in the Weaver’s Cove case. He said that the state would not appeal the decision of the three-judge panel to the full panel of First Circuit Court judges, adding, “We have suffered a setback, but that’s all it is. There are many more fronts on which we intend to fight this proposal. The decision does not preclude FERC from forcing Weaver’s Cove to return to the CRMC for a review of issues that weren’t included in the court decision, including the hazards from scow transits.”

Rubin explained that there is a threat of environmental damage from dredge sediments spilling off the barges.

“There is also a concern about the hazards from the 800-foot tow lines,” he said. “You’d be looking at approximately 1,000 scow transits through Newport harbor, including transits at the height of the boating season, and there are documented cases of masts being ripped off sailboats by those cables. The court decision doesn’t preclude a review of those hazards, so this decision is not, by any means, the end of our fight against this abomination.”

Rubin added that there will be exclusionary zones around the tankers, and that their arrival in the bay will be practically unannounced.

“Assuming you’re listening to the marine band on your radio, you’ll have 15 or 20 minutes in which to get out of those zones – two miles ahead of the tankers and one mile behind – or you’ll find your boat being boarded by Coast Guardsmen or private security agents,” he said. “I am not exaggerating. It’s going to be a very grim scene out there if this proposal goes through.”

Information about the Save the Bay campaign is available at www.savebay.org.

Colbert destroys Harold Ford

Alex Koppelman, Salon.com

For the most part, despite a string of segments in which he's embarrassed elected officials, politicians tend to see an interview with Stephen Colbert as easy. As long as you can come off looking like you're in on the joke, it's not like he'll ask truly tough questions, so hey, no big deal, right?

Tell it to former Rep. Harold Ford, Jr.

Ford was on "The Colbert Report" Monday night to promote his burgeoning candidacy for Senate in New York. But the appearance probably won't do much for his poll numbers, as Colbert spent more than six minutes embarrassing the former Tennessee congressman.

It started with the host's introduction of his guest, when he joked, "Evidently, six minutes at my interview table counts as New York State residency." And things got worse from there, as Colbert made Ford look silly regarding his having changed his position on abortion and same-sex marriage, then derided him for having said he'd seen Staten Island because he'd landed there in a helicopter. "Are there other places in New York you designate as helicopter-only?" Colbert asked.

Ouch.

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Michael O'Hanlon's "testosterone-laden tough guys"

But one thing is clear: in American culture, there has long been a group of men (typified by Williiam Kristol and Michael O'Hanlon) who equate toughness and masculinity with fighting wars, yet who also know that they lack the courage of their own convictions, and thus confine themselves to cheerleading for wars from a...far and sending others off to fight but never fighting those wars themselves (Digby wrote the seminal post on that sorry faction back in 2005). It seems that individuals plagued by that affliction are eager to avoid having it rubbed in their faces that there are large numbers of homosexual warriors who possess the courage (the "testosterone-laden tough-guyness") which the O'Hanlons and Kristols, deep down, know they lack.

By Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com, 02 04 10

(updated below - Update II - Update III)

Defense Secretary Robert Gates today will unveil the administration's plan for repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, beginning with a ban on discharging gay service members who are "outed" by third parties. More than 13,500 gay service members have been discharged since the Clinton-era enactment of that policy, which continued unabated even as America's military has been stretched horribly thin by multiple wars and endless tours of duty. Ironically, the highest number of discharges came in 2001, when more than 1,000 people were discharged for being gay. For some strange reason, Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution was on CNN to opine about all of this today, and this is what he said (h/t Michelangelo Signorile):

Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institute said the real test will be in the barracks, with the rank-and-file members of the military.

"We can talk about this delicately or we can just be fairly direct," O'Hanlon said. "There are a lot of 18-year-old, old-fashioned, testosterone-laden men in the military who are tough guys. They're often politically old-fashioned or conservative; they are not necessarily at the vanguard, in many cases, of accepting alternative forms of lifestyle."

First of all, O'Hanlon sounds like he just stepped out of a 1981 Moral Majority documentary. Who still talks about sexual orientation being an "alternative form of lifestyle"? That was always a dishonest and propagandistic phrase -- as though gay people intrinsically lead a different "lifestyle" -- and it's rare these days to hear anyone outside of Jim Dobson and Maggie Gallagher use it. And the apparent belief of O'Hanlon that there's an inverse relationship between masculinity and acceptance of gay people ("testosterone-laden men who are tough guys") is ludicrous, though, almost certainly, his saying this unintentionally reveals some disturbing psychosexual undercurrents that are driving O'Hanlon himself.

Second, O'Hanlon's views on the repeal of DADT were the same ones cited to oppose racial integration and an expanding role for women in the military (it's not me, but those primitive enlisted men, who will cause problems). It's also unbelievably disrespectful of the military itself and its rank-and-file, since it assumes that those who join the military are consumed with such uncontrollable bigotry and are incapable of adhering to its policies and dictates. That, too, seems to say much more about O'Hanlon than the "rank-and-file" members of the military whom he's disparaging.

Finally, what does Michael O'Hanlon know about the military, and why is he -- of all people -- being held out as some sort of expert on these matters? He's never been anywhere near the military. He specializes in establishing himself as a "testosterone-laden tough guy" by cheerleading for wars and urging that we send other people off to fight them -- all from the safety and comfort of his Brookings office. Several months ago, over 100 retired Generals and Admirals -- people who, unlike O'Hanlon, actually understand the military first-hand -- called for a repeal of DADT so that gay people can serve openly. Why would anyone believe that someone like Mike O'Hanlon, who relentlessly waves his pom-poms for war while ensuring he never fights them, has anything worthwhile to say on the topic of the military's ability to successfully integrate openly gay service members?

UPDATE: I'd also like to know whether those who (a) cheerlead for our various wars, (b) oppose the repeal of DADT and (c) are of prime fighting age -- such as GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah -- intend to enlist in order to replace the highly qualified, well-performing gay service members who are discharged under the policy they favor?

UPDATE II: Andrew Sullivan notes that Michael O'Hanlon's brother-in-arms for the testosterone-laden team of war-cheerleaders -- Bill Kristol -- echoed the same arguments today, even going further than O'Hanlon by insisting that homosexuality is inherently incompatible with the superior performance of military duties.

It should go without saying that debates over homosexuality, the military, warriors, masculinity and the like are suffuse with all sorts of complex psychological influences. But one thing is clear: in American culture, there has long been a group of men (typified by Kristol and O'Hanlon) who equate toughness and masculinity with fighting wars, yet who also know that they lack the courage of their own convictions, and thus confine themselves to cheerleading for wars from afar and sending others off to fight but never fighting those wars themselves (Digby wrote the seminal post on that sorry faction back in 2005). It seems that individuals plagued by that affliction are eager to avoid having it rubbed in their faces that there are large numbers of homosexual warriors who possess the courage (the "testosterone-laden tough-guyness") which the O'Hanlons and Kristols, deep down, know they lack. Banning gay people from serving openly in the military as warriors is an excellent way of being able to deny that reality to themselves.

UPDATE III: Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified today that "it is his 'personal and professional belief that allowing homosexuals to serve openly would be the right thing to do'." On Twitter, he added (yes, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is on Twitter):

Stand by what I said: Allowing homosexuals to serve openly is the right thing to do. Comes down to integrity.

I believe he knows more about the military than Mike O'Hanlon and Bill Kristol. As for O'Hanlon's projection (in both senses of the word) that young, conservative enlisted men will backlash against openly gay service members, the most recent poll shows that 69% of all Americans -- along with 58% of both self-identified "Republicans" and "conservatives" and 60% of people who attend Church at least once a week -- favor "allowing openly gay men and lesbian women to serve in the military."