BEP reversal lets Downeast LNG revise plan

AUGUSTA – A proposal for a liquefied natural gas facility in Robbinston is off the table again, but only temporarily, according to the developer.

Officials with Downeast LNG got their wish Thursday when the Maine Board of Environmental Protection reversed course and agreed to allow the company to withdraw its application for a large LNG facility on Passamaquoddy Bay.

Downeast LNG officials said withdrawing would allow them to identify an alternate pipeline route as well as submit additional information in a revised proposal, likely to be submitted next year. Project opponents, meanwhile, accused the company of gaming the regulatory system.

Thursday’s 5-3 vote capped off a string of unusual moves and countermoves by Downeast LNG, project opponents and the BEP that illustrates how complex and controversial the regulatory review of a massive LNG facility can be.

On two separate occasions since September, Downeast LNG officials have tried to withdraw their application for a 320,000-cubic-meter LNG import terminal, storage tanks and regasification plant at Mill Cove in Robbinston.

The BEP rejected both withdrawal attempts in part because of concerns about drawing out the already lengthy regulatory review, which included a week of public hearings in July. During the last vote, on Oct. 25, the board suspended consideration of the application until the company firmed up an alternate pipeline route after the first fell through.

But on Thursday, two board members changed their votes.

Board member Matt Scott said that, in retrospect, he now believes applicants should have the right to withdraw their proposals even when it means the investment of additional time and money.

Scott said he came to the conclusion after mulling over information on previous cases as well as the fact that the staff of the Department of Environmental Protection allows applicants to withdraw proposals.

“If an applicant needs more time and the applicant needs more information for the record, then I don’t think it’s going to hurt,” said Scott, who initiated the reconsideration vote.

Downeast LNG officials were pleased with the hard-fought win.

“We now will be able to come back before the board next year with a new pipeline route and additional information that addresses concerns raised by board members following the public hearings last summer,” the company’s president, Dean Girdis, said in a statement. “A more complete record will enable the BEP to make a more informed decision on our project.”

Girdis and other company officials first said in mid-September that they needed to withdraw because the application was missing critical information from the Maine Department of Marine Resources and other studies. The company said it also was still negotiating a pipeline route.

The company’s second withdrawal attempt came after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rejected a proposal to route roughly 4 miles of the gas pipeline through Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge. Company officials argued that without “title, right or interest” to the federal lands, they no longer had standing to even bring the application before the BEP under the department’s own guidelines.

Ironically, the group trying hardest to defeat Downeast LNG’s proposal is also the one arguing most forcefully to keep the application alive.

Attorneys for the organization Save Passamaquoddy Bay argued both at the October meeting and Thursday that Downeast LNG was merely trying to rewrite a public record that does not look favorably upon the project. The strategy reflected the consensus of group leaders that they came out ahead after the July hearings.

Save Passamaquoddy Bay representatives also suggested that by reconsidering its thoroughly deliberated earlier decision, the board could be undermining public confidence in the integrity of the BEP.

“My clients are already wondering what’s going on here,” attorney Ron Shems told the BEP.

Several board members strongly disagreed with any suggestion that reconsidering a vote would reflect negatively on the body.

“I don’t think anytime you search for the truth you demean your integrity whatsoever,” said board member Dick Gould, who again voted to allow the withdrawal. “To me, integrity would be lost if we came in here with a closed mind.”

In addition to Scott, the other board member who changed her vote was Nancy Ziegler, who said she did not feel the public would be well served by disallowing late testimony provided by the Department of Marine Resources. The board voted in September not to allow comments from DMR received after the official comment period had closed.

Downeast LNG’s application is one of two proposals pending with state and federal regulators for large LNG terminals in Passamaquoddy Bay.

The proposals have stirred up passions on both sides. While supporters view the projects as much-needed economic development in an impoverished part of Washington County, opponents say any positives are outweighed by concerns over safety and impacts on the local environment and culture.

Canadian officials, meanwhile, have threatened to block LNG tankers from passing through their waters en route to either Robbinston or the other LNG facility proposed for nearby Pleasant Point.

With so much at stake, it’s no surprise that parties on all sides – including the BEP and its legal counsel – are being very deliberate at each stage of the regulatory review.

“We know that anything we do is going to get appealed, and if we see a problem, of course we are going to bring it up,” Chip Ahrens, an attorney for Downeast LNG, told the board.

After the vote, Save Passamaquoddy Bay attorney Ronald Kreisman urged the board to make sure Downeast LNG files all of the required information next time to avoid additional “dry runs” by the company.