While various opposition environmental groups gathered for meetings earlier this week nearby, the Port of Long Beach separately moved forward with expanded environmental and safety assessments on a proposal for a 1 Bcf/d liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in the harbor, one of the world’s busiest, situated about 25 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

The collection of environmental groups opposing the joint proposal by Mitsubishi Corp.’s Sound Energy Solutions (SES) and ConocoPhillips called their efforts so far an “astonishing success” following a meeting Tuesday night in a nearby hotel. A Long Beach port official overseeing the environmental/safety work said the opposition efforts have not changed the port’s determination to work through the entire process of reviewing Conoco/SES’s $700 million proposal, although the process is going to take longer than originally thought.

How long? “It is tough to say,” said Geraldine Knatz, a port’s managing director for development, because the harbor authority has decided that all of its assessments will undergo peer review before being made final next year.

At their Tuesday meeting, the environmental groups premiered a series of anti-LNG commercials that will be used in local news media in the coming weeks. Included in the meeting were local chapters of the Sierra Club, Eco-Link, California Earth Corps, and the Long Beach Citizens for Utility Reform. The meeting was billed as a “first-of-its-kind.”

Knatz downplayed the impact of the local opposition, noting that the Natural Resources Defense Council’s recent critical report on the air emissions and other environmental problems in U.S. ports made favorable references to SES’s proposed Long Beach LNG terminal, which includes a plan to supply increments of LNG to run transportation and heavy equipment in the harbor that currently is powered by diesel.

“Reaction from the environmental groups is mixed at this point,” she said. “Our position is to take the proposal entirely through the process. It holds too many potential benefits to throw out the baby with the bath water.”

While the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has reiterated that the local Long Beach authorities have the final say on whether a terminal is eventually built, Knatz noted that the environmental assessment has been expanded to cover the terrorist threats and other safety concerns that have been raised in the past year by the opposition and others.

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