Passamaquoddy see details of LNG pact

PLEASANT POINT – Nearly a year after the Passamaquoddy Tribe agreed to partner with a development company in the hope of building a $400 million liquefied natural gas terminal on tribal land, details of the agreement were made available by tribal officials for the first time to all tribal members.

Last week the tribal council met and released financial details of the deal to those in attendance, according to tribal members, who said previously those details were not available to them. The council also decided to let the agreement lapse next month. The agreement was signed on May 14, 2004.

Tribal attorney Craig Francis told the Bangor Daily News on Monday the vote by the council was neither a thumbs-up nor thumbs-down vote on the project. He said letting the agreement lapse merely was a tool to get both sides back to the negotiating table to discuss extending the agreement or making a new deal.

To date, Oklahoma-based Quoddy Bay LLC has paid the tribe $20,000 to do a feasibility study and another $15,000 per month for 10 months of the 12-month contract, according to a copy of the agreement provided to the BDN by tribal members.

Although tribal members voted in favor of the project, Perry residents turned it down in March. In 1986, the tribe gave Perry residents a say over any commercial development on land annexed from the town by the tribe.

According to the agreement between Quoddy Bay and the tribe, the developers want between 40 and 60 acres of coastline property. The developers offered the tribe a maximum of $8 million a year to site a facility on tribal land. They agreed to pay the tribe a $665,667-a-month lease payment if a facility similar to the one that Conoco-Phillips hoped to build in Harpswell were developed. Harpswell voters rejected the project last year.

Should the Pleasant Point facility not reach the targeted billion-cubic-foot capacity of gas per day, the developers agreed to a minimum lease payment of $300,000 a month once the facility was fully operational.

During the past few months, the tribe has come under fire from those who believe that it should retain ownership over the terminal and let someone else run it. The agreement dealt with that issue. “Alternately an ownership interest by the [tribe] in the project can be negotiated in lieu of a ground-lease payment,” the agreement said.

Opponent Vera Francis said Tuesday the developers said they would leave if Perry voters rejected the project. “It is time to move on to healthy ways of being in a relationship with the [Passamaquoddy] Bay that has long sustained us,” she said.

But tribe public relations spokeswoman Emily Francis said Tuesday that Perry residents have contacted the developers to ask for another vote. “What we tell them is we can’t ask for another vote, they can do that. I think there’s a lot of interest out there. However, we have not committed to doing that yet, and we still are looking at all of our options and exploring other areas as well,” she said.

On Tuesday the tribe’s attorney could not be reached for comment.