Developer to pull LNG application D.C.-based firm plans to refile permit information, renegotiate

ROBBINSTON – Downeast LNG announced Friday it will temporarily withdraw its application for state permits to build a liquefied natural gas import terminal and pipeline in Washington County.

The Washington, D.C.-based company notified the Maine Board of Environmental Protection of its decision in a letter sent Friday. Downeast LNG President Dean Girdis said Friday that the application is missing critical information from the Maine Department of Marine Resources and data from additional studies.

“Basically we want to ensure that the record is complete and all the evidence can be reviewed,” Girdis said. “It is in our best interest, as well as that of the local residents and the state of Maine, to ensure that our applications include this information. Filing new applications is the best way to accomplish this.”

Downeast LNG also would like more time to negotiate with Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge the proposed route of the pipeline that would connect the LNG terminal to the Maritimes & Northeast pipeline at Baileyville, Girdis said.

Opponents of Downeast LNG’s development plans consider the withdrawal a “blow” to the company’s plans to construct a 320,000-cubic-meter LNG import terminal, storage tanks, a regasification plant and a pier on an 80-acre site at Mill Cove in Robbinston.

“We’re not surprised, yet we’re very happy that the waste of the public’s time and resources on a project that was always doomed to failure may come to an end, and we can all get on to more realistic and appropriate economic and quality-of-life enhancing efforts,” said Linda Godfrey, coordinator of Save Passamaquoddy Bay.

Downeast LNG is one of two highly controversial LNG terminals proposed in Washington County. Girdis said he expects to file a new application by the end of the year and that the decision to withdraw should not affect his proposed construction schedule.

Another application from Downeast LNG likely will mean another BEP review process and another round of public hearings, Girdis said. A week of public hearings on the initial application were held in July.

In a Sept. 6 meeting, a BEP board member and Assistant Attorney General Peggy Bensinger questioned whether it would be appropriate for the BEP to act on Downeast LNG’s applications without complete comments from the Department of Marine Resources, according to the letter Downeast LNG sent to the BEP Friday.

“In addition to evidence relating to resolution of DMR’s concerns, the Board’s review would benefit from additional evidence in other areas as well,” Downeast’s letter stated.

In its new application, Downeast LNG plans to provide the results of additional lobster surveys in Mill Cove and possibly an alternative pipeline route that would not pass through Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge, the letter states.

The federal permit applications Downeast LNG filed last December with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will not be affected by the decision to refile state applications, Girdis said. The federal applications are still pending before FERC and other agencies.