A large-scale antiterror drill will be carried out in New England about a week after the five-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, with the Distrigas of Massachusetts’ liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Everett, MA, playing a secondary role.

The scenario of the drill, which is scheduled for Sept. 17, will begin with authorities investigating a home in the town of Everett and finding a basement laboratory, which leads them to believe that a threat to the LNG facility is imminent. But their suspicions prove wrong, as the real threat is to a major shopping mall in neighboring Cambridge, MA, where a radioactive “dirty bomb” is released. Also a make-shift explosive device is found at a nearby rail station.

The drill ends with a fictional 25 dead and 150 wounded, according to a story published in the Boston Globe. The Framingham Fire Department, which will take the lead in the exercise, currently is seeking people to play the victims. The Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s Office of Homeland Security also will be involved.

The drill will be nothing new to Distrigas, said Julie Vitek, a spokeswoman for Distrigas, a subsidiary of SUEZ LNG NA. “Our company conducts at least one safety or security drill a month,” she noted, adding that “LNG is as safe, if not safer, as other fuels that come into our ports everyday.”

The city of Boston may beg to differ on that point. Worried that LNG shipments were attractive targets for terrorists, the city banned tankers from passing through Boston Harbor to offload LNG supplies at the Everett terminal for nearly two months following the September 2001 terrorist attacks (see NGI, Nov. 5, 2001). The city’s concern about the safety and security of LNG shipments still exists now, although probably not at the heightened level that was present in 2001.

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