Defining LNG Hazards on the Narragansett Bay

Note from Greetings: This is a followup letter from another group dealing with LNG tankers in their area. It's quite sobering, as was the Jamestown Press's initial story, which I will rerun. I can not imagine why any of our lawmakers will allow this to happen, nor the Coast Guard, nor the DEP. To quote the letter below: "The Weaver's Cove Terminal would severely impact property values; it would also present serious hazards. 1/3 of a mile from the explosion.. everyone would die. 1 mile from the ship - 2nd degree burns and asphyxiation potential (all within the range of Jamestown, Newport, Middletown, Portsmouth, Bristol, Fall River, and other population centers); 2.2 miles still presents an asphyxiation hazard and potential explosion hazards. (Moving past the bay into the other RI population centers, such as North Kingstown, East Greenwich, into Massachusetts and further north.) So... WHY is this even an option?

Jamestown Press, Letters to the Editor, Aug, 27, 2009

I just read your Aug. 20 editorial, “LNG tanker port would impact island lifestyle,” and thought I should mention some misunderstandings regarding LNG hazards.

I agree with your assessment that the Weaver’s Cove LNG terminal would severely disrupt activities on the water and impact property values. It would also present serious hazards; however, the comprehensiveness of the hazard mentioned in the editorial, I believe, is considerable but overstated.

While FERC considers the hazard zones (“zones of concern”) to extend just 2.2 miles from LNG ships, Dr. Jerry Havens, who developed the vapor dispersion hazard model, believes 3 miles is probably more accurate. Havens also has indicated that FERC and LNG developers improperly calculate LNG vapor impact zones. However, the 2.2- or 3-mile hazard zone does not mean everyone within that zone would be killed. There are three hazard zones: 1) 500 meters/one-third of a mile from the ship, 2) 1,600 meters/1- mile from the ship, and 3) 3,500 meters/2.2 miles from the ship. The hazard impacts would lessen with the increased distances of each zone.

Zone 1 presents the greatest hazards, where everyone would likely be killed by cryogenic temperatures, fire, explosion or asphyxiation.

Zone 2 presents a 30-second second-degree burn hazard to unprotected skin from a pool fire due to a conflagrated release at the ship. Confined vapor explosions, fire and asphyxiation could occur if combustion did not occur concurrently with the LNG release.

Zone 3 presents an explosion hazard from confined vapors, burn and fire hazard, and possibly an asphyxiation hazard.

In addition, actual impacts would probably not be symmetrical and would not entirely fill the areas of each of the hazard zones. The LNG vapors would likely be driven by wind, so the impacts would occur in relation to the wind direction and topography.

Another issue that may interest you is that the Weaver’s Cove Energy site violates world LNG industry terminal siting best practices. The Society of International Gas Tanker and Terminal Operators (SIGTTO; www.SIGTTO. org) represents over 95 percent of the world’s LNG industry. They research and promulgate best practices. Their publication “Site Selection and Design for LNG Ports and Jetties” (available only in hard copy for around £30 via Witherby’s Seamanship International) clearly states that, for the health of the LNG industry, LNG terminals should not be sited where vapors from a large LNG release would affect civilian populations. They also state that LNG terminals should not be sited up long and winding inland waterways where navigation hazards are greater. Also, in another publication of best practices, they indicate terminals should not be sited where there are conflicting uses of the waterway – now and into the future. Weaver’s Cove Energy clearly violates these best practices (see my LNG Terminal Siting Standards Organization website: www.LNGTSS.org).

Unfortunately, the U.S. Coast Guard and FERC ignore SIGTTO. They justify this by stating SIGTTO is merely advice and not law. Paradoxically, the U.S. Coast Guard spends considerable energy advocating adherence to best practices when it comes to other navigation issues.

LNG-related zone terminology is frequently misunderstood. Exclusion zones refer exclusively to LNG terminals, and are intended to prevent burn/fire injury to civilians and civilian assets. LNG ships have moving safety and security zones intended to prevent LNG ships from colliding with other vessels and to prevent attack from other marine sources. Also, while it would seem to make sense that the three LNG ship hazard zones should protect the public equally as terminal exclusion zones, they are based on different parameters. Exclusion zones are much smaller than hazard zones. Exclusion zones are designed (generally) to prevent civilians from the impacts of an LNG release, while hazard zones are not prohibited from engulfi ng large civilian populations who could be killed or injured.

I hope this information is useful.
Robert Godfrey
Researcher and webmaster
Save Passamaquoddy Bay
3-Nation Alliance
Eastport, Maine

Is Jeremiah Wright a colossal disaster for Barack Obama or a press trick?

NYDailyNews.com
Errol Louis

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright couldn't have done more damage to Barack Obama's campaign if he had tried. And you have to wonder if that's just what one friend of Wright wanted.


Shortly before he rose to deliver his rambling, angry, sarcastic remarks at the National Press Club Monday, Wright sat next to, and chatted with, Barbara Reynolds.

A former editorial board member at USA Today, she runs something called Reynolds News Services and teaches ministry at the Howard University School of Divinity. (She is an ordained minister).

It also turns out that Reynolds - introduced Monday as a member of the National Press Club "who organized" the event - is an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter.

On a blog linked to her Web site- reynoldsworldnews.blogspot.com
Reynolds said in a February post: "My vote for Hillary in the Maryland primary was my way of saying thank you" to Clinton and her husband for the successes of Bill Clinton's presidency.

The same post criticized Obama's "Audacity of Hope" theme: "Hope by definition is not based on facts," wrote Reynolds. It is an emotional expectation. Things hoped for may or may not come. But help based on experience trumps hope every time."

In another blog entry, Reynolds gives an ever-sharper critique of Obama: "It is a sad testimony that to protect his credentials as a unifier above the fray, the senator is fueling the media characterization that Rev. Dr. Wright is some retiring old uncle in the church basement."

I don't know if Reynolds' eagerness to help Wright stage a disastrous news conference with the national media was a way of trying to help Clinton - my queries to Reynolds by phone and e-mail weren't returned yesterday - but it's safe to say she didn't see any conflict between promoting Wright and supporting Clinton.

It's hard to exaggerate how bad the actual news conference was. Wright, steeped in an honorable, fiery tradition of Bible-based social criticism, cheapened his arguments and his movement by mugging for the cameras, rolling his eyes, heaping scorn on his critics and acting as if nobody in the room was learned enough to ask him a question.

Wright has, unquestionably, been caricatured and vilified unfairly. The feeding programs, prison outreach and other social services he has built over more than 30 years are commendable, and his reading of the Judeo-Christian tradition as an epic story of people trying to escape slavery is far more right than wrong - and not something to be caricatured or compressed into a 10-second sound bite.


But Wright should have known - and his friend and ally Reynolds, a media professional, surely knew - that bickering with the press can only harm Wright and, by extension, Obama.


I hope that wasn't their goal.