It ‘s obvious the only research Jon Barton has done on LNG is to read industry talking points. You can tell because in his latest letter he confuses the term “risk” with hazardous consequences.
(Strange-matter.net)
Low risks, great rewards sounds wonderful except a risk assessment isn’t even remotely relevant. The Fukushima Dai’chi Nuclear Power Plant was supposed to be low risk. There wasn’t supposed to be any risk of a natural gas pipeline bursting in a San Bruno residential neighborhood, or of a fertilizer plant exploding in West, Texas across the street from a school. The people of Lac-Mégantic had been assured that trains running through their community would never derail or if they did wouldn’t explode almost destroying the entire village.
What is relevant are the hazardous consequences should the risk assessments prove wrong. Hundreds if not thousands died in the catastrophes cited above, livelihoods destroyed and billions lost in property damage. In every instance the communities were completely unprepared, the devastation was beyond anything imagined or the resources available.
According to a report prepared by the Boston Fire Department, the real hazard of an LNG vessel incident is not an explosion but a pool fire or vapor cloud ignition where the loss of life could reach into the thousands. A leaky barbecue propane tank isn’t going to take out an entire city block, the heat from an LNG pool fire can ignite structures hundreds, thousands of feet away and last for 30 minutes.
If you really parse Barton’s letter he is saying these deaths are insignificant, a necessary price of commerce, mere collateral damage. The rewards are well worth the risks, he says. This same thinking is behind safety decisions at the airport! In the event of a hazardous plane crash, Barton will forgo a contract with highly trained professional firemen over a lousy $20,000 because in his mind the risk of that crash occurring is so low and people are just collateral damage anyway.
Like unwelcome dog droppings that somehow show up on my yard some mornings, letters like that of Jon Barton appear in The World’s public forum. Just as ignorant dog owners allow these deposits, ignorance is also a marking on this one as he attempts to represent the Chamber of Commerce/SCDC view regarding Jordan Cove.
As he belittles with sophistry, the arguments whether LNG is a danger to the area; he totally ignores other dangerous negatives attached to this ill conceived project: this project will have a 24 hour burning flare for the waste gases produced in the LNG liquefaction process. These gases as well as those produced by the associated power plant will be blown by the perennial persistent powerful prevailing NW wind directly to the most concentrated population area on the Oregon coast. They may be odorless, but we’ll all be breathing the toxic wastes as well as having to watch the glow on the horizon all night long. Perhaps this will be a navigation beacon for migrating flocks?
Next we must consider that the pipeline will enable the confiscation of private property from unwilling sellers so a private, foreign corporation can make a profit. You’d think that the CoC would object to that alone as betraying the basic American right of Private Property; but somehow it is never approached here.
Second, the pipeline right of way will provide a highway for invasive species into the heart of pristine wilderness that is much of Southern Oregon as well as endangering multiple salmon streams with unstable crossings. Remember the Mastec Mess from the first pipeline?
By all means, everyone should find out the truth for themselves and see if our children will be better off with the increased asthma rate; as well as whether more than thirty jobs will be offered in the long term. Read the fine print on this deal and be aware of who is making the deal for you. Follow the money. Don’t sit still and let our rights be run over for corporate profit. Besides, if it does get built, it will be gone in less than 20 years leaving the rusting remains on the Spit for the taxpayers to remove.
I for one, will be selling my house at a nice profit to one of those thousands of well paid workers who will be flowing into Coos County as a result of this boon. Then I’ll move up the coast where the air is better and the local powers-that-be have a better vision of what life on the Oregon Coast can be.
Well I have to partially agree with Barton on one thing. A golfer splattered like seagull guano all over the runway could be an acceptable form of collateral damage. I see a simple solution to the firefighter problem. The majority of the traffic in & out of our airport is the golfer going to the Bandon Dunes. If the golfer drops a dime in Coos Bay / North Bend during transit it is for a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up a few party essentials. Why not assess a greens fee for airport fire protection? I don’t use the airport. I fly out of Eugene. Why should my tax dollars go to support someones hobby…
SandyM praised Bandon Dunes for its “corporate gifting”, her words not mine. Let’s see if they gift us with the extra $20K per year to help save some lives.