Gov. Martin O'Malley said the state's billion-dollar economic engine at the port of Baltimore would be crippled if anything went wrong at a proposed liquefied natural gas facility on Sparrows Point. Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. predicted that local emergency responders could not begin to evacuate residents and workers or fight a fire at the plant.
And Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski said she was worried that an LNG plant would create a terrorist target in the Washington region and the potential for "an accident with ghoulish consequences."
"We're talking about burns, vapor clouds and asphyxiation," she said during a congressional hearing yesterday in Baltimore - the first of two being held off Capitol Hill to examine the safety and security of LNG terminals.
AES Corp., a global power-supply company in Arlington, Va., has submitted an application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to build a terminal and processing plant at the former Bethlehem Steel shipyard and to construct an 87-mile pipeline to southern Pennsylvania, where the processed gas would be distributed.
The company is also seeking permission to dredge a 117-acre area near the shipyard to accommodate the large tankers carrying the imported liquid gas.
An AES official defended the company's proposal at yesterday's hearing, saying experts agreed that Sparrows Point was a safe and "remote" location.
Aaron Samson, managing director of LNG projects for AES, said that in a "worst-case scenario" the heat from an LNG explosion would be felt a mile away.
The nearest homes, in the Turners Station neighborhood, are 1.2 miles away.
Asked why so many elected officials and residents were opposed to the project, Samson said, "LNG is new. In the post-9/11 world, it's a very emotional issue."
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, arranged for yesterday's hearing to be held at the University of Maryland School of Law so that residents, officials and Coast Guard commanders could testify at the same time.
The panel's findings, after a May 7 hearing in New York, could have national implications because more than a dozen on- and offshore LNG import terminals are proposed across the nation, Cummings said.
Cummings said he was disturbed by the Coast Guard's changing role in providing security at the LNG plant at Cove Point in Southern Maryland, the state's only LNG import facility - and its possible implications on the proposed LNG terminal on Sparrows Point.
