Despite extensive negotiations and concessions by project planners, the U. S. Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) has protested the construction of an underwater Bahamas to Florida LNG pipeline proposed by AES Ocean Express LLC. According to the center, the proposed line would run through the Navy’s south Florida test range compromising “the mission, operations, maintenance, safety and security at the [testing facility]; thereby adversely impacting unique surface and submarine warfare testing which are essential to the Navy and the security of the Nation and the Fleet.”

AES Ocean Express would pass through the 12-square mile test range near Dania, FL, where the Navy has an underwater research laboratory for acoustical studies and the study of electromagnetic ship signatures. The area also has served as an in-water laboratory for mine electronics testing, and the Navy anticipates using it as an operational training ground in minefield detection, avoidance and penetration. The area contains a shallow water and deep water inert minefield. To accomplish its studies the Navy maintains more than 100 cables of various descriptions, totaling 740 kilometers in length, extending up to 27 kilometers offshore and allowing the constant monitoring of data.

The Navy listed nine “serious concerns” it has with the proposed pipeline, from interrupting testing during construction to compromising cables and instruments, to the creation of noise and other electromagnetic interference.

It has requested the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission require the pipeline to be built outside the Navy test range. In a response filed with FERC, AES Ocean Express noted it had participated in discussions with the Navy since last October, addressing “discrete concerns” the Navy raised as to potential impacts. The company said it had completed its offshore survey work for a “route that AES understood would be acceptable to the NSWC,” provided certain concerns were addressed.

But, “AES heard for the first time during its meeting with the NSWC on March 18, 2002 of certain security-related concerns relative to the Ocean Express Pipeline.” It is convinced, however, that those concerns can be resolved. AES said it has agreed to do a study of acoustical impacts of the pipeline and to avoid or minimize damage to fiberoptic and other cables operated by the Navy in the area.

In an April 3 letter, addressing the Navy’s concerns FERC staff asked AES to list and detail all alternative routes that were or are being considered and to describe the status of the company’s negotiations with the Navy.

AES filed an application with FERC for the $440 million, 24-inch, 52-mile pipeline in late February (see NGI, March 11). It initially announced the project last fall, saying it had purchased a small island in the Bahamas where it would receive and regasify the LNG (see NGI, Sept. 24, 2001).

AES Ocean Express also faces opposition from the community of Dania Beach, which claims construction of the pipeline will impact homes and businesses, and the Save Our Shoreline Corp., a self-described public interest group, which says the project will disturb reefs, subsoil, seabed, and marine life and a coastal mangrove wetland. The group also is concerned with conserving “the world’s diminishing supply of natural gas.”

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