FALL RIVER, Mass. – Lillian Correia knows exactly how far a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal would be from the three-story home where she’s lived her whole life. It’s 7/10 of a mile, a distance the 79-year-old marked in her car.

Correia and her neighbors in the North End section of this mill city are anxiously awaiting word from federal regulators, who are expected to decide Thursday whether to locate terminals in Fall River and Providence, R.I., that accept liquid natural gas deliveries by ship.

“For me personally, I’m on my way out,” said Correia. “But I have four grandchildren and others have grandchildren they want to keep here. … I fear for them.”

City and community leaders in Fall River expect the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve the terminal and are preparing to continue the fight in the streets and in the courts. Their message: the project, called the Weaver’s Cove Energy project, creates a needless public safety risk and endangers people’s lives.

Attempts to reach Weavers Cove Energy officials for comment were unsuccessful.

In Rhode Island, leaders are hopeful that FERC’s environmental and safety review of KeySpan LNG’s $100 million proposal for the Providence waterfront, released last month, will convince the commission to reject the proposal. The commission said KeySpan’s proposal would not meet safety standards. KeySpan has said the recommended safety upgrades would be too costly and force the company to take the terminal out of service for three years.

FERC says the proposed LNG terminals, which are among about 40 LNG proposals being discussed by the commission nationwide, are a reliable and affordable way for New England to meet its energy needs. Massachusetts and Rhode Island officials generally agree LNG is needed, but argue it would be safer to locate the terminals in less populated areas, or offshore.

If approved, the two New England plans would bring to six the total number of onshore terminals in the continental United States.

LNG is natural gas supercooled until it turns to liquid so it can be shipped. If released, it becomes a colorless, odorless vapor that can catch fire. It will explode only in a confined area.

Fall River Mayor Edward Lambert Jr. said his chief concern about the terminal is public safety. About 12,000 people – more than 10 percent of the city’s population of 92,000 – live within a one mile zone where people could suffer second-degree burns if there were an explosion at the terminal, according to a federal government report.

The one-mile zone includes 5,100 homes, public housing developments, family-owned businesses, schools and at least one church, according to FERC and Fall River officials. Several dead end streets in the area would force residents to head toward the terminal to escape an accident there.

It’s “just insane” to put a terminal in the area, said Joseph Carvalho, a Fall River native and chairman of a citizens movement formed last year to fight the project. The group, Coalition for Responsible Siting of LNG Facilities, has worked to drum up public opposition, creating red-and-white “No LNG” yard signs, circulating a petition and meeting with neighboring communities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

“Some people have awakened that this is a bad idea all around,” Carvalho said.

The project comes as Fall River works to shed its image as an immigrant city beset by pollution and poverty. Plans are in the works to rebuild the waterfront, build 12 new schools and attract biomedical companies, Lambert said. The $250 million Weaver’s Cove project would halt the momentum, he said.

“All of that progress, I think, not only will be undone, but will move in another direction,” said Lambert, who spoke on LNG dangers this week in Washington before a group examining post-Sept. 11 security threats.

If the project is approved, the mayor said he’d request a new vote, and if that failed, challenge the siting in federal court.

Both the Fall River and Providence terminal proposals affect Rhode Islanders. To reach Providence, tankers the size of three football fields would travel 29 miles through the state and bypass communities with a combined population of nearly a half million people. To reach a Fall River terminal, a 73-acre former Shell Oil site along the Taunton River, they’d go 26 miles in mostly Rhode Island waters.

Either way, the tankers would pass near several communities, disrupting travel and boating, residents say. Worse, they’d be vulnerable to sabotage or an accidental release of the gas.

“This is about lives, and death, essentially,” said Stephan Brigidi, vice president of Save Bristol Harbor, a Bristol, R.I.-based civic action group.

On the Net:

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: http:///www.ferc.gov

KeySpan LNG: http:///www.keyspanenergy.com/klngexpansion/index-all.jsp

Weaver’s Cove: http:///www.weaverscove.com/

Coalition for Responsible Siting of LNG Facilities: www.nolng.org

City of Fall River: www.fallriverma.org