Campobello panel against LNG plan

CAMPOBELLO ISLAND, New Brunswick – Officials at this island’s international park said Thursday they do not want an LNG facility in their back yard.

Their pronouncement comes in the wake of a vote in Perry last month where residents expressed a like feeling.

Meanwhile the Passamaquoddy Tribe and a would-be Oklahoma developer of the proposed facility at Pleasant Point are assessing their options.

The Roosevelt-Campobello International Park Commission said it opposed the development of an LNG treatment and transshipment facility at Pleasant Point, immediately adjacent to the international border with Canada.

Emily Francis, the tribe’s public relations spokeswoman, said Thursday she was surprised the commission had taken a stand at this late date. “Why are they coming out against it now?” she said. “We got turned down in Perry. We right now are taking a step back and looking at all of our options, we don’t have a plan in place right now.”

The commission, which met for the first time this year, sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice outlining its concerns.

The park was established in 1964 by a treaty between the United States and Canada. The 2,800-acre park is on Campobello Island, near the border with Lubec. The park’s main attraction is the historic summer home of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who vacationed on Campobello with his family over a period of 56 years beginning in 1883. On average nearly 130,000 people visit the park between May and October.

The former president’s grandson, Christopher, who is chairman of the commission, said Thursday that the group, made up of six Canadian and six Americans, voted after careful consideration. “A statement and all of the supporting information was prepared and circulated to the commissioners, it was thoroughly discussed at the meeting last Saturday and the commission voted to support the statement and get it moving as quickly as possible,” he said.

Asked what the commission would do if the project moved forward, Roosevelt said, “when we get to that bridge we will see how it is best crossed.”

A ship would pass close to the island on its trip to the LNG terminal. In its statement, commission officials said safety was a major consideration.

“It is clear from analyzing the various safety reports available from both U.S. federal sources and private independent institutions that the heat alone from any fire or explosion involving an LNG tanker in transit to or from the proposed terminal would immediately render to ashes much of the shoreline vegetation and structures on northern and western Campobello Island, the island’s most populated areas, including the park’s shoreline buildings and the historic Roosevelt cottage,” they said.

The commission said that the explosion of any LNG tanker has been compared to 55 Hiroshima nuclear bombs.

They also asked the Canadian government to restate its policy against the involvement of tankers through Head Harbor Passage and said that Canada views the waters concerned as “internal waters” and therefore not subject to limitations of sovereign action such as might be implied by the doctrine of “freedom of innocent passage.”