LNG Plant Siting

Using natural gas for heating, cooling, and electricity generation instead of oil or coal has important environmental benefits. Burning natural gas produces less air pollution than other fossil fuels, both in terms of the pollutants that threaten public health and the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. While New England should reduce overall energy demand through increased efficiency and cut fossil fuel demand by ramping up renewable energy, CLF considers natural gas to be an important transitional fuel as we move toward a clean energy economy.

Still, natural gas is not benign. Significant environmental hazards can accompany the methods used to extract natural gas, including groundwater pollution from the practice of hydraulic fracturing and critical habitat destruction from drilling and extraction.

There are also negative environmental impacts associated with liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) terminals used to bring gas into the region. The risk of catastrophic explosion has mobilized communities across the region to fight terminals in their areas, especially urban areas of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. LNG project development also includes dredging, vessel and plant emissions, noise, and degradation of other natural and scenic resources, including fisheries, a prospect that has sparked appropriate alarm up and down the coast.

New England has one onshore LNG terminal, the Distrigas/GDF Suez Everett Marine Terminal, which has operated near Boston since 1971. Concerns about the impacts of such facilities have pushed many proposals for new development offshore. One offshore LNG terminal, the Northeast Gateway Deepwater Port, operates today, and a second, Neptune LNG, is under construction. Both are about 10 miles offshore from Gloucester, Massachusetts. Additionally, a Canadian LNG facility near Maine and expanded pipelines have boosted the region’s gas-import capacity.

Onshore LNG projects have been proposed on Passamaquoddy Bay in Maine: Downeast LNG in Robbinston and Calais LNG in Calais. Another project, Weaver’s Cove, would site a terminal in Mount Hope Bay and would require a damaging, disruptive cryogenic pipeline to carry the LNG to Fall River.

These proposals remain on the table even though the natural gas market in New England is already well supplied. The federal government estimates that all natural gas needs can be met from the region’s existing LNG terminals and gas pipelines, making the projects less attractive to investors.

CLF is opposed to building additional LNG facilities in New England. The energy benefits of these facilities would be minimal, while the environmental costs would be huge. While we need natural gas in the short term as a transitional fuel, it would be a tragic mistake to build large, expensive, industrial, long-lived infrastructure to facilitate long-term importation of a fossil fuel that is part of the climate change problem.