Massachusetts Congressmen James McGovern and Barney Frank on Wednesday appealed to President Bush to support the Navy’s plea to reopen the controversial case to site the Weaver’s Cove liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal in Fall River, MA, on the grounds that it would interfere with the Navy’s testing of warfare systems.

“We…urge you to join in requesting that FERC reopen this procedure so that the Navy’s objections can then be fully aired because we believe this will lead to a reconsideration and reversal of FERC’s [July] decision” approving the proposed terminal facility, the two Democrats, who represent parts of Fall River, wrote in a letter to the president.

“We were struck to learn that the Navy had not been informed of this [LNG] proposal, which it reports will have a significant negative effect on the important [underwater testing] functions of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division in Newport,” RI, the lawmakers said.

The Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division (NUWC), which borders on the Narragansett Bay near where LNG tankers would travel to get to Fall River, contends the tanker traffic would interfere with its testing of multi-million dollar submarines, torpedoes and sonar systems.

The Navy last Friday asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to allow it to intervene late in the case and reopen the evidentiary record to receive further evidence, noting that the agency’s environmental review and July 15 order approving the terminal made “no substantive mention of the Navy’s presence or activities in Narragansett Bay, nor the potential impact of the proposal on the Navy.”

The Navy said it didn’t learn of the Weaver’s Cove LNG project and the “potential impact to its mission” until after FERC approved the project last month (see Daily GPI, July 1).

Sponsors of Weaver’s Cove LNG have called on FERC to reject outright the Navy’s request for late intervention in the case, saying that the Navy’s claim “to have acquired only belated knowledge of the ‘status’ of the Weaver’s Cove project is profoundly disingenuous.”

The issue of the Navy’s testing activities in the lower Narragansett Bay should not be before the Commission, but rather, if necessary, should be addressed by the U.S. Coast Guard, according to Weaver’s Cove LNG (see Daily GPI, Aug. 18).

It argued that “LNG tankers transiting to the Weaver’s Cove terminal will be subject to exactly the same limitations as any other maritime traffic already transiting through the NUWC’s restricted area.” Weaver’s Cove further noted that the “NUWC has failed to show why LNG vessels should be treated differently.”

The Navy is only one of a number of state and federal officials who are opposed to siting the LNG project in Fall River and/or have sought rehearing of the Commission decision based on safety/security concerns, including Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the attorneys general from Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Fall River Mayor Edward M. Lambert, and McGovern and Frank.

The opponents could very well have a fighting chance this time due to the arguments of the Navy and language that was inserted by McGovern in the recently enacted Transportation Equity Act erecting a major obstacle to the LNG project. The new law bars the demolition of the Brightman Street Bridge, connecting Fall River and Somerset, MA, to make way for LNG cargo traffic. The Weaver’s Cove sponsors, Amerada Hess and Poten Partners, were counting on the bridge being destroyed so they could fit their LNG tankers through and reach the Fall River destination (see Daily GPI, Aug. 10).

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