The arrival last Monday of an 860-foot liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker in Boston Harbor — the first one to enter the port since the U.S. Coast Guard imposed a post-Sept. 11 ban on the shipments — was met with a string of security precautions that was unlike anything ever seen in Boston before.

“A flotilla of Coast Guard small boats accompanied the ship, while fireboats stood at ready, airplanes waited in holding patterns and [Boston’s] Tobin Bridge was closed until the ship slipped passed on its way” to Distrigas of Massachusetts LLC’s off-loading terminal in Everett, MA, according to an article in The Boston Globe. “As the tanker passed Castle Island, a long cable was…rigged from a tug boat to the stern of the tanker,” which “could be used to pull the ship back to sea in case terrorists struck a debilitating blow.”

The tanker laden with 33 million gallons of LNG reportedly plodded through the harbor with “almost no lights on the hull” to avoid attention, and docked safely at Distrigas’ terminal at about 10 p.m Monday, according to the Globe account. With the safe arrival of the vessel, which was bound from Trinidad, the company said it expects to receive a tanker shipment every 10 days. The Coast Guard lifted its freeze on LNG tankers into the harbor in mid-October (See NGI, Oct. 22)

With LNG shipments expected to arrive on a regular basis, this immediately raised questions about who was going to foot the bill for all the additional post-Sept. 11 security measures — Distrigas or Boston and neighboring communities. The city of Boston plans to send a bill for approximately $15,500 in police overtime to Distrigas this week, a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office said, adding that other local communities and state offices that provided security intend to follow suit.

The tanker, Matthew, entered Boston Harbor only hours after U.S. District Court Judge Reginald Lindsay denied Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s petition for a temporary injunction to halt the LNG shipment, ruling that the city of Boston and several communities bordering the harbor had offered “no discernible claim” to warrant such action. Menino continues to view LNG transportation through the harbor as a potential hazard, and spoke to federal Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge last week about his concerns.

The city and the four communities — Everett, Chelsea, Somerville and Nedford — wanted to keep the LNG tanker at sea until they were assured that public safety and emergency crews could handle a possible terrorist attack on the vessels. “This is not in opposition to Distrigas and it is not in opposition to LNG. This is about people. Boston Harbor is unusual in that it can be very residential,” said Lisa Pollack, a press aide to Menino.

The city of Boston claimed that it had little input in formulating the stepped-up security plan for LNG transportation in the harbor, and hadn’t even viewed the final plan that was prepared by the Coast Guard in Boston and several federal, state and local agencies.

Distrigas President Rick Grant tried to quell local fears. “We look forward to working with the city of Boston, as well as with representatives from surrounding communities, to satisfy any legitimate concerns they may have and to assure them of the comprehensiveness of our safety and security procedures.”

The Coast Guard, which had a major role in developing the new security procedures for LNG tanker shipments, said it was a “collaborative effort…not a unilateral one. No one agency can do this alone.” Moreover, it believes the security plan developed for LNG shipments in Boston Harbor provides a blueprint for other ports nationwide. “…[W]e have prepared a security plan and a consequence plan with our partners that can be used elsewhere in ports around the United States. These are excellent management plans which will help us deal with hazardous cargos everywhere.”

Although the focus on LNG transportation safety has been “reassuring,” Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), whose district includes the Distrigas LNG facility, last week expressed “serious concerns” about the multiple agencies that have often-overlapping jurisdiction for the safety of the facility itself. These concerns, he said, were brought to light in an Oct. 26 letter that he received from Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Norman Mineta.

Markey last Tuesday sought the “urgent assistance” of Ridge to untangle the overlapping federal, state and local agency responsibilities for ensuring the safety and security of the Distrigas storage/terminal facility. At the federal level, he noted that currently DOT’s Office of Pipeline Safety and the Department of Energy (DOE) share responsibility for the safety and security of the Distrigas site, while the local Everett Police and Fire Departments have the lead role in responding to an accident or attack.

Markey proposed that the DOT be designated as the “lead agency” to assure the security of the Distrigas site, and also suggested that Ridge consider authorizing additional resources to help local fire and police units provide on-site protection.

While the Coast Guard — the lead federal agency for securing LNG transportation to ports — “can muster 100 reservists and special equipment on days when a ship arrives, the city of Everett has no such authority for all the other days that a ship is absent,” he wrote in an Oct. 30 letter to Ridge. “I am concerned that our response to the occasional danger posed by the arrival of a ship is disproportional to our response to the routine, everyday danger posed by the onshore facilities themselves.”

Markey believes the risks associated with Distrigas’ on-site LNG tanks are as significant. “If the Coast Guard is concerned about protecting 7 million gallons in a [ship’s tank] if it loses the assistance from 100 reservists, you can imagine how concerned the Everett Police and Fire Departments have become about their ongoing responsibility for 25 million gallons sitting in [onshore] tanks without reserve support.”

He further called attention to the lack of security/safety background checks on personnel employed by Distrigas or by other entities involved in LNG shipping. “I believe this is a soft spot in our defenses that invites the kind of attack that would be aided by an insider.”

In an effort to assuage Markey’s concerns, Mineta informed the lawmaker that the DOT’s Federal Aviation Administration has imposed specific flight restrictions on the entire Boston area Class B airspace to safeguard LNG in transit and at the plant site. “The nature of this airspace would prohibit indiscriminate flights over the LNG storage facility.”

Moreover, he reported the DOE has commissioned Quest Consultants Inc., an engineering firm, to perform a study to analyze the threat that would result from a five-meter diameter hole in an LNG tanker on a vessel. It already “has performed some initial calculations to quantify the gas dispersion and fire scenarios that could follow a large release from the LNG storage tanks,” Mineta said. DOE also plans to contract with a national laboratory to study the potential hazard in the event of a small projectile coming into contact with the onshore facilities.

The Distrigas terminal is the only LNG terminal in the U.S. that is located in a major urban center. One security expert suggested to NGI that there may be pressure to eventually close it and open another one to the north, along the Maine coast.

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