LNG proposal stirs up community Robbinston area residents wonder about impact on larger ecosystem

ROBBINSTON – Six months ago, this community was unaware it was on liquefied natural gas’s radar screen.

Today, Robbinston is abuzz with talk about all the attention it has received from two separate developers. One is the Oklahoma-based Quoddy Bay LLC, which hopes to build a storage tank unit in Robbinston. The other is the Washington, D.C.-based Downeast LNG, which hopes to build a $400 million LNG terminal and tank system.

Although Quoddy Bay plans to build three tanks across the road from the Downeast LNG facility, that company’s president, Dean Girdis, said it was full speed ahead for his project. “We’re not changing anything; we’re going straight forward,” he said of Downeast LNG.

Girdis, however, questioned Quoddy Bay’s plan to put an LNG pipeline underwater. The pipeline would stretch eight miles from Robbinston to Pleasant Point where the company hopes to put its terminal. “It’s never been done before. There is no LNG pipeline under the water,” Girdis said. “There’s technical limitations, financial. It could be done. Anything could be done. It’s a question of cost.”

“What pipeline in the water?” Quoddy Bay spokesman Dennis Bailey asked Monday. Bailey said he would not respond to Girdis’ comment.

Girdis said there was a potential for environmental impact by putting a pipeline in the water because of the need to dredge. “You can’t just lay a pipeline along the seabed. It has to be dredged and trenched. So there’s a lot of impact on the marine environment to any pipeline in the water,” he said.

Bailey said Quoddy Bay would minimize the impact on the environment, the water and marine life. “We are going to do it in a way – can I say there’ll be no impact, of course not, but we are going to do it in a way that minimizes any impact,” he said.

But even with Quoddy Bay breathing down its neck, Girdis said he believed his company had selected the best site in New England. “And the best chance of getting permitted based on environmental and technical considerations,” he added.

With two projects sitting in Robbinston’s backyard, the question is what impact they could have on the nearby St. Croix River, including the historical St. Croix Island where in 1604 the French built their first settlement in the New World.

One of those watchdog agencies is the St. Croix International Waterway Commission. Nearly two decades ago Maine and New Brunswick established the commission to coordinate management of St. Croix’s international resources. “The commission takes the recent LNG proposals for Robbinston very seriously,” executive director Lee Sochasky said Monday. “We will begin reviewing these to see how well they fit with the St. Croix waterway’s international management plan.”

The St. Croix Estuary Project, which also has a say over the St. Croix River system, plans to examine both projects.

“The St. Croix River, Passamaquoddy Bay, Head Harbour [on Campobello Island, New Brunswick], they all are one ecosystem. We are looking at the whole thing,” said Art Mackay, executive director of the St. Croix Estuary Project. “Our function is to make sure that we have a solid environment both for the people and the plants and animals. I would point out too that we operate the Ganong Nature Park [in New Brunswick]. There’s also Devil’s Head [in Calais], the St. Croix Historical Site [in Red Beach], and all of these are all within this area – not to mention the Blockhouse in St. Andrews that’s all within our historic purview. We intend to do something with that.”

The National Park Service has jurisdiction over the St. Croix Historical Site. Sheridan Steele, superintendent of Acadia National Park, did not return a telephone call Monday.