The marine fisheries division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has raised serious questions about the adequacy of the draft environmental impact statement (EIS) being developed by FERC on NorthernStar Natural Gas’s proposed Bradwood Landing liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal.

The terminal would be sited along the Columbia River in Oregon. NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) comments were submitted to FERC Monday as part of the ongoing compilation and review of the draft EIS.

Bradwood Landing received approval last Thursday from the local county elected commission for the rezoning it needs to develop the 1.3 Bcf/d Bradwood terminal. Clatsop County Commissioners voted 4-1 to allow the rezoning of land formerly used for a lumber mill, town and deep-water port (see Daily GPI, Dec. 17).

NOAA’s fisheries unit provided initial comments to federal regulators in May, and the submittal Monday — a 10-page collection of comments — was specifically in reaction to the draft EIS, drawing on what NOAA’s Rodney Weiher called “special expertise and responsibility to manage, conserve, and protect marine and coastal living resources.”

“NOAA believes substantial work remains to complete the EIS to ensure the impacts to the environment are described, analyzed and mitigated adequately,” said Weiher, telling the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that the latest submittal summarizes the fisheries unit’s “remaining concerns” related to potential impact on the aquatic environment.

In its comments, the NMFS looks at the draft EIS’s handling of alternatives, proposed impacts and mitigation and coordination with natural resource agencies, fisheries and marine mammal protection.

“The mitigation plan included in the DEIS appears inadequate and incomplete,” the NOAA unit said. “The preferred alternative does not contain any mitigation for several adverse impacts on NMFS’s trust resource, including listed species under the federal Endangered Species Act.”

Generally, in looking at alternatives, the NOAA unit finds that the analysis is incomplete. It suggests in several instances that FERC pursue more details on several alternatives. In some cases, the FERC work so far is characterized as not addressing some issues at all. “The sensitivity of a species or their habitat to change does not appear to have been factored into the alternatives analysis.”

In looking at cumulative impacts from the proposed 40-acre site, which sits 38 miles from the river’s mouth, NMFS said the impacts analysis on aquatic resources (anadromous fish) in the FERC DEIS is “a single paragraph,” which caused the reviewers to conclude: “This seems overly abbreviated.” It urged FERC to add more “robust analysis.”

A NorthernStar spokesperson said the company was “reviewing the comments in detail” and would respond to the concerns of NOAA and other agencies. We “are confident we can address these issues appropriately,” the spokesperson said.

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