Environmental Lunacy: Sierra Club Determined to Stifle Natural Gas Flow Through Maryland Plant
- Post 03 May 2012
- By Copy Editor
FILE- This undated aerial file photo shows the Dominion Liquified Natural Gas facility in Cove Point, Md. The Sierra Club said Thursday it will try to block an energy company's plan to export liquefied natural gas to find new markets for the drilling boom that has flooded the Mid-Atlantic with natural gas.
Virginia-based Dominion Resources Inc. is seeking to export 1 billion cubic feet per day through a terminal it owns in Maryland. A previous legal settlement dating to the 1970s gives the Sierra Club the ability to reject any significant changes to the purpose or footprint of the existing natural gas terminal in Cove Point, Md., 60 miles southeast of Washington. (AP Photo/ Matt Houston, File)
Ben Wolfgang | The Washington Times:
Cove Point in Southern Maryland has become the latest flash point in the fight between the fossil fuels industry and its longtime foes in the environmental movement.
Citing a unique Carter-era agreement, the Sierra Club says it will veto plans by energy giant Dominion to build the first natural gas liquefaction and export facility on the East Coast, a site that would handle booming supplies from the Marcellus Shale and other vast deposits for shipment to Asia and elsewhere.
The 1970s legal settlement, the Sierra Club argues, gives it the authority to halt any project that would “change the footprint” at Cove Point, which currently hosts a little-used natural gas import facility and includes sites designated as Maryland natural heritage areas.
Dominion maintains that the project, which could export about 750 million cubic feet of gas per day and would create thousands of jobs, satisfies the agreement, and the firm has all intentions of moving forward, whether environmentalists like it or not.
Neither side denied Thursday that they will end up in litigation over the proposed facility, which Dominion plans to begin constructing as early as 2014 and expects to have operational by 2017.
“As with any project of this magnitude, we would expect some opposition from various special interest groups,” Dominion President and CEO Thomas F. Farrell II said in a statement. “We have reviewed the regulations and agreements governing the site and are confident we can locate, construct and operate … the facility with minimal environmental impacts.” ...continues...
(Editor's note: This same group has no problem with government clear cutting public lands, dotting the countryside with hundreds of monstrous man-made windmills and solar panels, which use highly toxic and corrosive chemicals to function, and require hundreds of miles of trenched cable/power lines to connect. The fact is there is nothing natural in capturing wind or solar energy, and the green movement's misguided impact on the environment will have consequences long into the future. Moreover, fossil fuels, albeit finite, are as natural as the wind. It comes down to how we use or abuse those resources and those whom want the control and windfall.
"Question all which is 'taught,' dig deeper, think clearly, respond profusely. Conformity is the antithesis of free thought and self-determination." -- Standard Pearls