Opponent’s speak out during fed official’s tour Foes of proposed LNG facilities participate in site visit

PERRY – The sky was overcast and a light drizzle fell Thursday morning along the shore of Passamaquoddy Bay, but the weather at moments was nicer than the collective mood of dozens of people who toured sites proposed for a liquefied natural gas terminal and storage facility.

Officials with development company Quoddy Bay LLC and with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the primary governing body for LNG proposals on American soil, led about 90 people on a site visit to two locations that would be developed under Quoddy Bay’s proposal.

Bob Kopka, the sole FERC official present for the site visit, said afterward that FERC is still in the process of receiving information from Quoddy Bay and is gathering its own data for an environmental impact statement on the proposal. Kopka said that on Tuesday he and other state and federal officials toured the proposed pipeline route that would connect the terminal with the existing Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline in Princeton.

The main purpose of Thursday’s site visit, Kopka said, was to give the public a chance to see firsthand the sites that would be developed if Quoddy Bay’s proposal receives federal approval – a decision that likely will not be made for at least another 18 months.

But judging from the comments and questions posed by people who accompanied the officials on the tour, many members of the public saw it as an opportunity to challenge the proposal and to question the effectiveness of FERC’s review process.

Before heading to the proposed terminal site on Passamaquoddy tribal land at Split Rock and then to the proposed tank site in Perry, an impromptu question-and-answer session started around 9 a.m. in the local Quoddy Bay offices on Route 190. Some of the first questions and comments set the tone for the rest of the site visit, which lasted through the morning.

After asking about some of the maps Quoddy Bay officials had set up in their offices, some people criticized the maps as “deceptive” because they did not show accurately how close the proposed pier would come to the Canadian border. Others demanded to know how closely FERC would work with Canadian officials in reviewing the project and whether the terminal was practical in light of global difficulties in securing LNG supply.

“We’re not here to answer that question,” Kopka told the 60 or so people who had crowded into the Quoddy Bay office.

Brian Smith, project manager for Quoddy Bay, interjected to say the site visit should begin and encouraged the crowd to follow him to Split Rock.

A few minutes later, however, after the group had reassembled at the proposed terminal site down the road, the questions and comments did not get any more friendly.

Standing at the edge of the shore, Smith told the crowd Quoddy Bay would pay for all of the safety and security precautions needed to protect the terminal and nearby residents. Some expressed doubt about the sincerity behind Smith’s comment, and one man said Smith already had gone back on his word on another issue.

David Gholson of Eastport accused Smith of lying by having promised his company would leave town if residents voted against the preliminary proposal in a March 2005 vote. The result of the nonbinding vote was 279-214 against Quoddy Bay’s development plans.

“You’re still here,” Gholson said.

“You’re still lying,” another man said from the back of the crowd.

Smith denied ever having made such a promise.

“Oh, please!” a couple of people exclaimed in disbelief.

Perry resident Geneva Duncan-Frost accused Smith of having a cocky attitude, but Smith said he was trying to stay civil. He was, he acknowledged, feeling a little bit picked on.

“So far today, I’ve been told to shut up and called a liar,” Smith told the crowd. “It’s tough to sit here.”

Several yards away, while Smith spoke, nine or so members of the Passamaquoddy Tribe gathered on top of the outcropping that gives Split Rock its name and began to sing.

Vera Francis, a member of the tribe opposed to the development, said she and her companions were protesting FERC’s visit. The agency should not have scheduled the visit, she said, until after a lawsuit some members of the tribe have filed against the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs is resolved. The suit, filed in federal court in Bangor, claims the agency violated federal law when it approved the developer’s lease agreement with the tribe.

“This sacred ground is not to be used for heavy industrialization,” Francis said.

Not everyone who followed Smith and Kopka around on the site visit was outwardly opposed to the proposal. Among the crowd was a group of 14 master’s degree students from Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., who are in the area for three weeks to study the ecology of the Passamaquoddy Bay area.

One Perry woman was outspoken in her support of the project, engaging in debate with another tour participant as they walked up a fire lane later in the morning to the proposed tank site near Pigeon Hill.

Linda Newcombe said her family has lived in the area for five generations and runs tourist-oriented businesses such as summer rental cabins and a whale-watch tour boat.

“You can’t live on tourism in Eastport,” she said. “We need jobs around here.”

After the site visit ended, Smith seemed unfazed by the mood of the event. He said he has taken a lot of care to make sure the proposal is a good one, not just for Quoddy Bay but for the surrounding area.

“The more I talk about it the more proud I am about it,” he said.