There was a letter written by Steve Jones the director of OCEAN and a member of Citizens against LNG (The World, May 31), extolling the virtues of a coastal research center in Charleston. His opinion is that the dredging of the bay, which would be required if the port were to land the container facility, would destroy that opportunity. He seemed to lump the idea that the liquefied natural gas terminal would require much additional dredging, which is not a fact.

While having a research facility in Charleston is a great goal, I wonder how many family wage jobs would be created by it. The LNG terminal alone will create 120 of those jobs. There could be many more because of the cheap source of energy available near the terminal. There would be more than 500 jobs during the construction periods — jobs that local people could fill. Just look at what Titan Maritime, the company removing the New Carissa, has done for our local businesses and employees.

Jones goes on to say that the LNG terminal will destroy our fishing industry, because it will close the bay. That is not true! When an LNG tanker comes in, it will close access to large commercial vessels from Charleston for eight minutes. That would be 80 times a year.

As to the container terminal, he is correct, it would require widening and deepening the channel, however, the upper bay would not be dredged more than it is now.

While the antis continue to oppose development, if we don’t have ship calls, we won’t be able to continue maintaining our deepwater port, and we are threatened with losing the safest port from San Francisco to Seattle. That fact will affect our commercial fishing fleet much more than the limited clearance required during the passage of the tankers. It is my opinion that we need family wage jobs, not just tourist-related minimum wage jobs.