Tag Archives: Pivotal LNG

WWALS response to FERC on opposition comments of Pivotal LNG about small, inland LNG Rulemaking 2022-10-04

Update 2022-10-26: WWALS response to opposition comments by Eagle LNG about small, inland LNG 2022-10-17.

Today WWALS and seven other organizations rebutted the opposition comments of Pivotal LNG, LLC to the WWALS, et al. petition to FERC for Rulemaking on small, inland, LNG facilities.

First and last page

If you also want to intervene or comment, here’s how:
https://wwals.net/?p=59062#tocomment.

Yes, the comment deadline has passed, but a FERC attorney told me the Commission usually considers comments filed later.

Thanks to all the co-signers on today’s response: LEAD Agency, Inc., Kissimmee Waterkeeper, Lake Worth Waterkeeper, Peace+Myakka Waterkeeper, Collier County Waterkeeper, Three Rivers Waterkeepers, and Food and Water Watch.

Thanks to all the previous commenters, especially Floridians Against Dirty Energy (FADE), League of Women Voters, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Florida Springs Council, Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance, Waterkeepers Chesapeake, Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper, Anacostia Riverkeeper, Potomac Riverkeeper, Assateague Coastal Trust, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, and others too numerous to list here.

Thanks to Maxine Connor for rustling up many of those organizations.

Thanks as always to Cecile Scofield, doggedly pursuing LNG for decades now.

The Response

Filed with FERC 2022-10-04 12:40:32 PM as Accession Number: 20221004-5116, “Response to Opposition Comments of Pivotal LNG, LLC, by WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc., et al., under RM22-21.”

Need Show Cause for NFE Miami LNG, Strom LNG, etc. –WWALS to FERC 2021-07-30

I wondered why we were suddenly getting media inquiries about a letter WWALS sent to FERC two weeks ago. Yesterday FERC got around to posting it. Weirdly for a letter about Florida, in the docket for a Puerto Rico Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) facility. Well, we did cite FERC’s March 2021 Order in that docket as a precedent.

Interestingly, it’s marked:
Non-decisional: No

Does that mean FERC is willing to entertain what we asked? Send SHOW CAUSE letters to all five Florida facilities? Or revoke FERC’s 2015 abdication of oversight over inland LNG export facilities?

As the letter says, we are not fans of FERC. But no FERC environmental oversight turns out to be worse than FERC.

WWALS to FERC 2021-07-30

Accession Number 20210817-4000 as “Comments of WWALS Watershed Coalition re NFE Miami LNG under CP20-466.”

The letter references the 2015 FERC decision that it did not have jurisdiction over inland LNG facilities. That decision is Pivotal LNG, Inc., 151 FERC ¶ 61,006, (2 April 2015). Then-Commissioner Norman Bay dissented, writing in part:

Here, the majority acknowledges that “liquefaction facilities operated by Pivotal and its affiliate … [will] produce liquefied natural gas that [will] ultimately be exported to foreign nations by a third party” and that such foreign sales must be made pursuant to an export license from DOE.⁵ There can be little doubt, therefore, that the facilities will be involved in the “exportation of natural gas in foreign commerce.”

Until FERC revokes that 2015 abdication of oversight over inland LNG export facilities, the least it can do is to send SHOW CAUSE orders to each such facility demanding to know why it should not be under FERC oversight.

Need Show Cause; Map of LNG export operations

Incidentally, FERC Hotline Support replied about Nathaniel Davis: “He no longer works at FERC.” I had to forward the letter to Janel Burdick, the Deputy Director, Office of Enforcement, who is now also Acting Director. Does anybody know what happened to cause that personnel change at FERC? Continue reading →

FERC gets inland LNG half right, for Puerto Rico, and maybe more soon 2021-03-18

FERC actually told New Fortress Energy (NFE) it has 180 days to file an application for authorization to operate its Puerto Rico liquid natural gas (LNG) facility. I’m happy to admit I did not expect this.

FERC Order and WWALS LNG facilty map

Yet FERC failed to tell NFE to shut down meanwhile: “We also find that allowing operation of the facility to continue during the pendency of an application is in the public interest.” Translation: it would cost a fossil fuel company income.

But the best part is in a concurring letter. Continue reading →

Proposed AGL settlement for Homerville Explosion –GA-PSC 2020-02-13

More than the $250,000 proposed last September, but still only 15% of the $2,305,000 previously proposed by GA-PSC staff: that’s the proposed settlement that Atlanta Gas Light will have to pay for the explosion that blew up a coffeeshop in August 2018 and sent three women to hospital with third-degree burns. The incident for which even PHMSA asked for clarification of how serious it was.

Most of the larger proposed fine was apparently because of lack of investigation or reporting even after the event.

Photo: State Insurance Commission Office, via WALB

Edan Schultz, WALB TV, 14 February 2020, Settlement proposed in Homerville coffee shop gas explosion,

“Last year was staff’s estimate of the top penalty, should all infractions be fined at the maximum rate. In this proposed agreement, rather than simply fine AGL at the maximum rate, the PSC and AGL came up with a solution that will help prevent an accident like this from happening again,” said PSC spokesman Tom Krause.

Commissioner Jason Shaw (on right)

Commissioner Jason Shaw said AGL’s “voluntary contributions” totaling $347,000 would help prevent further such incidents. The phrase he and Krause used was Continue reading →

AGL pipeline explosion settlement deferred again by GA-PSC for state-wide safety: needs to add LNG 2019-09-19

For more time to examine where gas detectors are needed throughout the state, GA-PSC has again deferred voting on the AGL settlement. As Commissioner Jason Shaw said at the first deferral Tuesday, they want to “make sure that all across the state we can make sure that this type of equipment…” is available.

Plus GA-PSC should take a hard look at AGL subsidiary Pivotal LNG’s Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) liquefaction facilities and truck and train routes from them to Jacksonville, Florida, especially since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has shirked its oversight duties for inland LNG facilities.

Georgia, AGL Pipeline Map, in Homerville, GA pipeline explosion, by John S. Quarterman, 17 August 2018

AGL has pipelines all over the state of Georgia. I don’t know any reason to believe any of them are any safer than the one that goes from my property in Lowndes County to Homerville in Clinch County (and to Moody Air Force Base, to parts of Valdosta, to Ray City in Berrien County, and to Lakeland in Lanier County).

The map above is the newest I could find online. It was last updated in 2008, more than a decade ago. No doubt AGL can provide the PSC with more current mapping data. Maybe the PSC could require AGL to provide an updated map to the public.

The Public Map Viewer by the Pipeline and Hazardous Safety Administration (PHMSA) is no help: it does not include AGL’s distribution pipelines such as the one to Homerville.

PHMSA was sufficiently concerned about the Homerville Coffee Corner explosion that it wrote on AGL’s report to PHMSA: Continue reading →

Extended: PHMSA LNG by rail car exception until 2019-08-07 on 2019-07-09

The only extension request PHMSA admitted to today, as it extended the comment period for a month, was from two members of Congress. That request notes:

If Energy Transport Solutions intends to run 100+ rail tank cars on the Florida East Coast Railway, PHMSA would be placing large swaths of people and critical infrastructure (hospitals, schools, highways, and even the President’s Mar-a-Lago resort) in jeopardy.

3.3.2 Probability of Delayed Ignition

PHMSA also took the opportunity to add an Updated Environmental Assessment (EA), and a Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA), which is worthless: “The scope of the QRA addresses unit train movements along one example route located in the Northeastern United States.” The QRA has no maps nor any specific identification of populations, schools, hospitals, businesses, nor even identification of which route is the example, nor which other routes might be used for shipping LNG by rail.

This all to me sounds like PHMSA always intended to extend, and to add these less than useful documents.

PHMSA also claims it added “The Energy Transport Solutions, LLC special permit application (in redacted form)” but I can’t find that online, so we still don’t even really know who the applicant is.

Extension Notice

Continue reading →

PHMSA LNG by rail car exception 2019-06-06

Alachua County, New Jersey legislators, WWALS, and the U.S. House of Representatives oppose this PHMSA LNG-by-rail exception, and you can, too.

Special Permit- Draft-0001

PHMSA proposes to authorize LNG in ordinary cryogenic rail cars, in an exception for a subsidiary of the company that owns Hialeah LNG and already sends LNG in containers by rail for export. “In most cases, ETS would expect that the ultimate end-users of this LNG will be foreign generators of power for residential, commercial and industrial purposes,” says the Draft Environmental Assessment. Why should we risk our homes, schools, businesses, hospitals, etc. for private export profit from New Fortress Energy’s Hialeah LNG plant near Miami? Or for a liquefaction plant in Pennsylvania or New Jersey?

PHMSA posted this extension request on June 3rd, and the deadline for comment is this Monday, July 8, 2019. WWALS signed onto an extension request by Physicians for Social Responsibility. You can still send in a copy of that request or other comments by Monday. WWALS will be filing another comment letter, as well.

The only ETS google maps finds in Doral, FL, is Continue reading →

WWALS to FERC: Sabal Trail Leak, Dunnellon, LNG export, safety 2018-12-19

Despite Bernard McNamee’s statement early in the meeting that his agenda was to listen, FERC didn’t seem to want to hear me mention Sabal Trail’s leaks or their lack of LNG oversight yesterday. More on that later. Meanwhile, here is the letter I sent FERC Wednesday 19 December 2018 via PDF as FERC Accession Number 201812195184, Sabal Trail Hildreth Compressor Station Leak 2018-09-29, Supplemental Information / Request of WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. under CP15-17, et. al.

December 19, 2018

To: Chairman Neil Chatterjee and Commissioners

Cheryl A. LaFleur, Richard Glick, Kevin J. McIntyre, and Bernard L. McNamee

Cc: Kimberly D. Bose, Secretary

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

888 First Street NE, Room 1A

Washington, DC 20426

Via email and e-filing

Re: Sabal Trail Hildreth Compressor Station Leak 2018-09-29

FERC Commissioners and Secretary,

Sabal Trail already leaked, despite years of safety assurances by Sabal Trail and FERC.

We only know about this leak at Continue reading →

LNG export from Port Everglades and Jacksonville –Florida Bulldog 2018-08-22

Florida Bulldog reports on LNG exports right now from Fortress Energy’s Hialeah plant through Port Everglades via Florida East Coast Railway (FECR) through densely populated neighborhoods. The larger story includes FECR can export via Crowley Maritime from Jacksonville, and Pivotal LNG is already exporting LNG from Alabama and Georgia through JAX, arriving via truck down I-75 and I-10. Plus offshoot pipelines from Sabal Trail already go to both Jacksonville and Riviera Beach. Why should we let these corporations cash in on fracked methane now that solar power is already here?

An LNG export ship fueled by LNG. Image: Crowley Maritime; “An artist’s rendering of one of Crowley’s LNGfueled, combination container and roll-on/roll-off (ConRo) ships—El Coqui slated for delivery in 2017.”

Ann Henson Feltgen, Florida Bulldog.org, 22 August 2018, Despite ‘disaster risk,’ trains haul hazardous gas cargo in South Florida,

About the same time Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) executives were convincing Florida’s east coast cities and counties to back its idea of privately owned passenger trains traversing downtowns and densely populated neighborhoods, it quietly sought and won permission to haul extremely flammable liquified natural gas along the same tracks.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is a hazardous material Continue reading →

WCTV will report on Homerville pipeline explosion tonight 2018-08-20

Noelani Mathews of WCTV stopped off at the origin of the AGL pipeline that goes to Homerville, on her way to the site of the Friday explosion. Her story should be on the air at 5PM and 6PM tonight.

WARNING
HIGH PRESSURE
NATURAL GAS
Atlanta Gas Light,
An AGL Resources Company

She asked me pipeline context questions, which I answered as best I could, given that the origin is on my property in Lowndes County, Georgia.

She remembered reporting from that same location back in 2016. Continue reading →

WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

A healthy watershed with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable water.