After five years of protests, delays and setbacks, you might think Weaver’s Cove Energy would be ready to scrap its plan to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in Fall River.
But you’d be wrong.
“Weaver’s Cove is not going away, and if they don’t realize that now – the opposition – they are living somewhere else,” said James Grasso of Grasso Associates, a consultant and spokesman for Weaver’s Cove, which is a subsidiary of the multinational oil giant Hess Corp. “And we’re not giving up for three reasons: We know it’s needed, and we know it will be accepted, and we know we can build it safely and securely, in an environmentally acceptable way.”
Hess and its partners have already spent more than $75 million on the Weaver’s Cove project, according to Grasso. The company has filed nearly a dozen lawsuits to appeal state and federal officials’ denials of permits for the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal. In addition, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which approved the project in 2005, recently extended the company’s building permit for the facility by five more years, to 2015.
Meanwhile, in response to Coast Guard concerns about 950-foot supertankers traveling up the Taunton River (READ MORE), Weaver’s Cove has unveiled a revised proposal. The new plan would park the tankers at a 1,200-foot-long floating berth in the middle of Mount Hope Bay, just northeast of the Massachusetts-Rhode Island border, and offload liquefied gas there for transport through underwater and underground pipelines to a regasification plant in Fall River’s North End.
“We are determined to see this project through to fruition,” said Grasso.
That determination – or stubbornness, depending on your position – frustrates local elected officials, who are nearly unanimous in their opposition to the project. Their reasons focus on environmental concerns and the possibility of a catastrophic accident or terrorist attack.
“Weaver’s Cove Energy is as committed as ever to building an LNG terminal in Fall River – whatever the risks to public safety, whatever the costs to the environment, and whatever the opposition from affected communities,” R.I. Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch told Providence Business News in an e-mail.
Lynch also attacked Weaver’s Cove for what he termed its “arrogant and singular fixation on profit,” declaring that he and other opponents “will continue to stand firm until this ill-advised, unsafe, and unworkable project is defeated, once and for all.”
Meanwhile, state and federal lawmakers are continuing to throw up roadblocks in their own attempts to thwart the Weaver’s Cove plan.
R.I. State Rep. Raymond E. Gallison (D-Bristol) won passage of a new state law earlier this month requiring Weaver’s Cove to obtain approval for the terminal’s emergency response plan from the R.I. General Assembly and the town or city councils of Bristol, Jamestown, Middletown, Newport, Portsmouth and Warren. The law, which passed with only one dissenting vote, gives veto power over Weaver’s Cove’s emergency plan to state legislators and officials in those seven communities.
And on July 16, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to designate 40 miles of the lower Taunton River, from Bridgewater to Fall River, as a protected area under the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The industrial section of the waterway would be protected as a recreational area.
Republicans seized on the measure, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Newton), as a chance to criticize Democrats over energy policy. “If this qualifies as a wild and scenic river,” declared U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), “then downtown Manhattan can be a national forest.”
But Frank defended the move, saying that urban rivers are just as deserving of protection as rural ones.
Passage of the bill would raise another hurdle for Weaver’s Cove, by requiring approval from the National Park Service. A Senate version of the measure has been passed out of committee and could be voted on by the full chamber later this year.
Three years ago, the Massachusetts congressional delegation secured passage of a law that prevents the old Brightman Street Bridge from being torn down, even after the new bridge is completed. The openings beneath the old Brightman’s drawbridge aren’t wide enough for the LNG tankers.
“Of all the terminals that have been proposed, Weaver’s Cove has encountered as many difficulties as any other that I’m aware of,” said Bill Cooper, president of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, a trade group based in Washington, D.C.
Community opposition to new LNG terminals is not uncommon, Cooper said, but some regions of the country are more inhospitable than others, and the Northeast is one of those. On the Gulf Coast, by comparison, there are already four existing LNG terminals, with three more being built and 12 approved for future construction.
The debate over Weaver’s Cove is also taking place as LNG becomes an increasingly important part of the nation’s energy supply, amid an ongoing decline in the domestic natural gas production. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts that LNG will make up 13 percent of the country’s natural gas supply by 2030, up from just 3 percent today.
The LNG industry is prepared to meet that demand, despite setbacks for individual projects such as Weaver’s Cove, Cooper said.
“We’re on track,” he said. “It’s kind of a silent success story. We always hear about all the opposition, but the industry is on track to have the regassification capacity we need.”
The industry has not had an accident in nearly half a century, he added.
Cooper also warned New Englanders that relying on natural gas supplied by other regions could jeopardize the local supply during peak use, and also get more expensive. “That’s a downside for the consumer, to have a supply of gas too far away from the market,” he said.
The EIA forecasts a total rise of less than 1 percent in New England’s natural gas consumption between now and 2030, partly because higher prices for gas would make coal a more attractive option. Experts caution, however, that the passage of climate-change legislation limiting carbon emissions could result in a bigger increase.
New England currently has more-limited access to natural gas pipelines than other regions of the country, said Phyllis Martin, an LNG market analyst with the EIA. Building more terminals here would help to ensure access, even during times of peak demand, she said.
That, Grasso argues, is why it’s necessary to build an LNG terminal in Fall River.
“We need – desperately need – new natural gas storage and supply for this coming winter and future winters and summers,” he said, predicting scattered brownouts and blackouts here as early as this winter.
Others, however, speculate that Weaver’s Cove Energy may just be waiting for the right opportunity to bail out of the project.
“I think a lot of what’s happening now is Weaver’s Cove playing out the string, trying to find a way not to be embarrassed by a defeat that affects shareholders and the like,” said Edward M. Lambert Jr., the former mayor of Fall River who led that city’s opposition to the LNG terminal before leaving office in 2007. “I don’t think most reasonable people give them any shot at success at this point.”
But Grasso disputes that charge, pointing out that the project would bring jobs and investment to Fall River. And should it go through, Weaver’s Cove has offered to either buy the properties of unhappy residents in the neighborhood around the proposed terminal or pay them 10 percent of their homes’ values as compensation for the inconvenience, he added.
Grasso, for his part, accused Lambert and other area officials of ignoring the energy needs of their constituents while using the LNG project to benefit themselves politically. “If people die this winter,” due to a lack of natural gas for home heating, he said, “I think the congressmen will probably get different kinds of phone calls.”
In the end, said Cooper, the LNG trade group president, what matters is ensuring an affordable supply of energy for homeowners and businesses.
“Many times, opponents wail against LNG projects. But the LNG industry is trying to deliver a product that the consuming public demands and needs,” he said. “We’re not trying to sell them snake oil and convince them it’s a miracle cure. The people want natural gas.”
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