Controversy Surrounds NY's Planned Offshore Gas Port
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- Category: General
- Published on Wednesday, 14 January 2015 04:24
- Written by Administrator2
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Plans to build a new natural gas terminal off the New York/New Jersey coast are stirring up quite the controversy.
Liberty Natural Gas is looking to build a new $600 million deepwater port in federal waters 19 miles off Jones Beach, New York, and 29 miles off Long Branch, New Jersey - a plan first hatched in 2008. Its purpose is to bring more natural gas to the New York area during peak demand times.
Business and labor groups support the plan, as it is projected to generate around 800 construction jobs. However, environmentalists and some elected officials say it is a dangerous, unnecessary project, given that America is overflowing in large supplies of domestically produced natural gas.
According to the Associated Press, a public hearing on the proposal last week drew more than 1,000 people, many of whom said they fear the project, dubbed Port Ambrose, is really designed to be switched to an export facility once it is built, to facilitate the sale of gas produced by hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, to overseas markets.
Liberty strongly denies having any plans to export the gas. The Port Ambrose project is an import only project. The project will not have the technology, including the cooling equipment that would be needed to export gas. The project’s safe, state-of-the-art technology can only be used to regasify and deliver natural gas, not export it. Also, Port Ambrose’s state and federal permits will not allow exports from the facility.
The project currently is under review by the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Maritime Administration.