Just months after unanimous rejection of the Cabrillo Port Liquified
Natural Gas (LNG) proposal by Federal and State permitting agencies,
Governor Schwarzenegger, and many South Coast communities, NorthernStar
Natural Gas, a Texas-based natural gas corporation, has submitted
a new proposal to construct an offshore LNG terminal in the Santa
Barbara Channel. NorthernStar hopes to convert Platform Grace, and
active oil production facility approximately 12 miles west of Oxnard
and 3 miles north of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary,
into a terminal to receive and regasify LNG delivered from overseas.
The project will also involve :
-nearly 300 LNG supertanker trips in and out of the Channel
per year,
-construction of floating docks to berth the massive ships,
-new high pressure, subsea gas pipelines from Grace to Oxnard,
-approximately 63 miles of new onshore gas pipeline from Oxnard
to Santa Clarita.
Unfortunately, because of its scale and
proposed location, many of the environmental impacts associated
with the Cabrillo Port LNG project are likely to apply to the
NorthernStar proposal, including air pollution, impacts to whales
and other marine life from underwater noise pollution, artificial
lighting and ship strike, immense discharge of greenhouse gases
and the exacerbation of global warming, threats to public safety
and impacts to existing uses of the Channel such as commercial
fishing, recreation, and scientific research.
Consequently, EDC is conducting legal and
scientific analysis of the NothernStar proposal on behalf of its
client, Santa Barbara Channelkeeper, a non-profit organization
dedicated to the protection and restoration of the water quality
and marine environment of the Santa Barbara Channel.
Click
here
to learn more about Santa Barbara Channelkeeper.
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