Fishermen split over LNG Fishing community fears tankers might interfere with livelihood

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The debate over proposed liquefied natural gas terminals on Passamaquoddy Bay is tiring local fisherman and dividing their community into two conflicting sides.

If constructed, LNG terminals would require deliveries from tankers that would limit access to Passamaquoddy Bay, Western Passage and Head Harbour Passage, and fishermen are showing varying levels of concern.

“LNG has polarized the entire community and it has also polarized the fishing community,” said Will Hopkins, executive director of the Cobscook Bay Resource Center, a community development organization in Eastport.

Oklahoma-based Quoddy Bay LNG proposes to build a receiving terminal at the Pleasant Point Reservation of the Passamaquoddy Tribe and an LNG storage facility in Perry.

Washington, D.C.-based Downeast LNG proposes to build a receiving terminal and storage facility in Mill Cove at Robbinston.

As both companies prepare to formally apply for their projects with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, fishermen are anticipating the size of the LNG transport vessels and the safety and security zone the U.S. Coast Guard places around every LNG tanker traveling in U.S. waters.

Safety and security zones are created to protect the LNG vessel, its cargo and other vessels on the water from collisions and terrorist attacks.

All other boats are required to stay out of the zone unless they receive permission from Capt. Stephen P. Garrity, commander of the northern New England Coast Guard sector.

LNG transport vessels range from 800 to 1,000 feet in length and have a 30- to 40-foot draft. Their protective zones range from several feet to up to a mile, according to Coast Guard port security specialist Alan Moore.

Safety and security zones now are placed around liquefied propane gas vessels traveling to Portsmouth, N.H., and on visiting military vessels traveling to Maine. The Coast Guard also places zones around harbors during special events and around the Bush property in Kennebunkport when the president and former president visit.

At present, the Fourth of July Navy vessel is the only vessel traveling to Eastport that requires a safety and security zone, according to the Eastport Coast Guard station.

LNG tankers traveling into Boston Harbor command a safety and security zone of 2 miles ahead, 1 mile astern and 500 yards on either side when in transit, and 400 yards while docked, according to Lt. Cmdr. Ben Benson of the Coast Guard station in Boston.

Benson said Cove Point on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, where Dominion Cove Point LNG is located, is less populated and for that reason more comparable to Passamaquoddy Bay. LNG tankers traveling into Chesapeake Bay have a fixed safety and security zone of 500 yards.

If Maine’s LNG proposals are approved, Downeast LNG said, it would bring in one ship a week. Quoddy Bay LNG said it would bring in one ship every two to five days.

The ships would take 11/2 hours to travel from the entrance at Head Harbour Passage to the Pleasant Point terminal and 21/2 hours to travel from the entrance to the Robbinston terminal.

“Their route is already a congested area,” said Harry Shain Sr., chairman of the Cobscook Bay Fisherman’s Association. The association is made up of fishermen from Lubec to Calais.

Aside from concerns of LNG tankers destroying gear and frightening fish away, the association fears losing fishing ground to safety and security zones.

Shain, a 73-year-old Perry resident and lobster fisherman, is primarily concerned about access to Mill Cove, an area rich with lobsters, he said.

The association has filed two documents with FERC citing its concerns over the proposed LNG terminals. Both refer to concerns about safety and security zones surrounding the tankers.

“How much will fishermen and others be limited in our ability to move freely on the water due to security measures?” asks a letter to FERC from the association dated April 26, 2006.

But Gerald Morrison, a fifth-generation herring fisherman from Perry and an Eastport harbor pilot, does not share the association’s concerns.

“We don’t really see an impact as far as the ships go,” said Morrison, whose family owns four herring weirs around Mill Cove.

Morrison pointed out that since the safety and security zones move with the LNG vessels, “they would only interfere for about five minutes while the ship goes by.”

Morrison said one of his weirs is in Mill Cove, and he said Downeast LNG has said it would compensate him for any loss.

Dean Girdis, president of Downeast LNG, “seems to be a man of his word,” Morrison said.

Shain disagrees. The LNG project developers have not sufficiently addressed the association’s concerns, he said.

“They don’t really come out and answer questions. They beat around the bush,” Shain said.

Shain said the association has met with both LNG developers, and members are frustrated by unending discussions that go on during meetings. Some members have even left the association, he said.

“Right now, we’re probably down to about 12 members,” Shain said.

The association represents a small portion of the fishing community in Washington County. In 2005, 318 people from the nine towns around Cobscook Bay held 699 marine harvesting licenses, according to the Cobscook Bay Resource Center.

Girdis said, “There is a degree of openness that is not being acknowledged by the opponents.

“In terms of the gentlemen who lobster right near our pier who are concerned about loss of income, we’ll compensate them if they have loss,” Girdis said, while admitting, “In the worst case, they won’t be able to fish there.”

Brian Smith, project manager of Quoddy Bay LNG, said the ships delivering LNG to Pleasant Point would be on a regular schedule that fishermen would be able to work around.

“We’d also like to create a shipping lane for all ships that go through,” Smith said. “There isn’t an established shipping lane going through Head Harbour Passage. These ships have no obligation to stay on a certain path or a certain lane.”

LNG opponents say project developers are downplaying the Coast Guard’s enforcement of safety and security zones.

“They are trying to convince [the fishermen] that it won’t inconvenience them at all, and it’s not true,” said Bob Godfrey, spokesman for Save Passamaquoddy Bay, an LNG opposition group.

The Quoddy Bay LNG Web site states, “These safety zones … do not necessarily exclude other ships or activities in the waters.”

Downeast LNG wrote in a report to FERC that the zones are not expected to be “absolute exclusion zones that would preclude all other vessel movements.”

Both statements are accurate, according to Capt. Garrity.

Garrity said his decisions to allow vessels to enter or move through safety zones would be made on a case-by-case basis. In the past, such as with LPG vessels going into Portsmouth, entrance to a safety zone has been allowed in a “controlled situation where we knew exactly the nature of the request, who was making it and had all the details specific to the transit route and timing.”

Garrity is stationed in South Portland and oversees all ports for Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. If an LNG facility were approved in Washington County, he sometimes might delegate authority to a Coast Guard official at the Eastport station, he said. That official then could decide whether other vessels could enter the safety zone.

Eastport City Manager Bud Finch said the fishing community is uncomfortable with “the extreme pro and con sides.”

“That’s what’s difficult about it,” Finch said. “We’re all brothers and sisters, and we still have to sit at the diner together.”