CHARLESTON - The latest round of liquefied natural gas-related talks transpired before a mariner crowd last week, when Bob Braddock, Jordan Cove Energy Project director, appeared before the Charleston Advisory Committee to answer questions and make the case for an LNG holding facility on Coos Bay's North Spit.

Charleston Harbormaster Don Yost describes the Charleston Advisory Committee as “a representation cross-section of users and customers of the port who are called upon periodically to weigh in about port issues.” In that capacity they'd convened to discuss how LNG-carrying tankers would affect the port and harbor. Braddock thus focused the majority of his talk on the consequences of LNG-tankers coming into local waters.

He opened the meeting by discussing the training LNG-tanker pilots were going through, primarily in computer simulations in Newport, R.I. As he discussed the procedures these ships would use to reach the terminal, people began breaking into his presentation with questions.

“Are we going to get English-speaking pilots?” interjected Rayburn Guerin, president of the Oregon Trollers Association. When Braddock answered that they would, Guerin asked, “Well, will it be legible English? Are they Monrovian registered?”

After telling Guerin that the pilots would be from Coos Bay, Braddock asked if he should abandon his presentation and simply dedicate his time to answering questions. The crowd answered in the affirmative, and for the rest of the meeting Braddock engaged in a back-and-forth repartee with the audience.

Of principle concern to most of the audience was the effect LNG-tankers would have on the port and harbor. Braddock said that 80 LNG tankers would move through the harbor every year, and many questions concerned the effect of the safety zone around every LNG-tanker, an area in which ships have to get special permission to operate.

“How is this going to affect our shipping and fishing business?” asked one audience member. “Will we all have to get off the water every time one of these LNG ships comes through?”

Braddock responded that some boats may indeed be asked to clear out of the way, while others would not.

“If the pilot is familiar with the boat, like if it was a fisherman he sees all the time out here, then it'll be able to move through the safety zone,” said Braddock. “But if it's a strange vessel, then that's an issue. Then the pilot has the right to say, ‘I want them out of the way.'”

In response, an audience member mentioned that many recreational boaters would not clear out of the way of ships no matter what you told them. Braddock admitted that was a problem the Coast Guard and he would have to look into.

Asked whether he foresaw any environmental impacts to the movement of LNG tankers, Braddock admitted that he did.

“If you moved an additional 80 chip ships through the area, you'd have an impact then as well,” said Braddock. “But with the fuel we're burning and the movement, yes, there will be an impact.”

In addition to users and customers of the port, members of the anti-LNG coalition also attended the meeting. Some asked questions, while others made proclamations, such as that the community should abandon the use of natural gas altogether and use only renewable energy.

A woman in the audience asked why the Coos Bay area should be interested in an LNG holding facility when “all that gas is only being taken to California.” Such an assertion was made two other times during the meeting from audience members, and each time Braddock strongly disagreed with the characterization.

“All these people talking about the gas only going to California, they're wrongheaded,” said Braddock. “The state line is meaningless in terms of gas flows. This gas is for the use of this area, the Seattle area, Portland, San Francisco, the Northwest region.”

One man wearing an anti-LNG pin then claimed to have an article from the San Francisco Chronicle “that proves” the proposed LNG terminal was meant solely to serve California's natural gas needs. He shook printed copies of the article in his hand as he said this, then flung them onto the meeting table. Braddock laughed at this, as did other members of the audience, and the article went unread throughout the meeting.

Another man contended that a California senator had personally written him and told him that “this (LNG facility) is going to come to Coos Bay, because we need the gas in California, and there's nothing you can do about it.”

This also was met with stifled laughter.

Asked to list the three biggest drawbacks that the LNG-tankers would pose to the area, Braddock listed the “increased vessel traffic, which I won't deny will cause some inconveniences” and the environmental impact of having 80 fuel-burning ships. At a loss to list a third one, someone in the audience said, “safety.”

“I heard someone say ‘safety,'” said Braddock. “I honestly don't think safety is a big concern. You have to go back to (World War II) to find an incident of something wrong occurring with these LNG tankers, and even then they knew they were doing things wrong because of the scarcity of proper materials due to the war. Japan has had 24 LNG terminals, most of them much bigger than the one we're proposing, since the '60s, and they've never had a single problem.”