Feds Approve Cove Point Fracked Gas Export Facility

Despite ongoing opposition from area residents, the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC) has approved the conversion of the Dominion Cove Point liquified natural gas (LNG) facility in southern Maryland from an import to an export facility. The decision also authorizes the installation of additional compression at Dominion’s Pleasant Valley Compressor Station and related facilities in Northern Virginia.

This decision allows the facility to pipe fracked gas from across the region to the area, liquify it and to ship the LNG overseas to China and India. Opponents say this will increase fracking and fuel climate change.

Response from a bevy of environmental and grassroots groups that are fighting the project was negative and outraged.

“FERC’s decision to allow LNG exports from Cove Point is fundamentally flawed because the agency failed to consider the simple fact that exporting LNG will mean more drilling and fracking, and that means more climate pollution, more risk of contaminated groundwater, and more threats to the health of people who live near gas wells,” said Deb Nardone, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Natural Gas campaign. “FERC should be standing up for the public good, not the interests of dirty polluters.”

“In the rush to export our natural gas, public officials and agencies are failing to protect the health and safety of the residents of Calvert County and people throughout the Chesapeake region," said Waterkeepers Chesapeake executive director Betsy Nicholas. “Upstream impacts of fracking, and new and expanded pipelines and compressor stations are being ignored. Economic impacts to local and regional economies are being ignored. Pollution impacts to the Bay, the Patuxent River and upstream rivers, streams and drinking water sources are being ignored. It’s difficult not to conclude that our public officials just don’t care.”

Local opponents are also concerned about the facility's proximity to homes, schools and businesses in Calvert County, saying it threatens the health and safety of thousands of people with the potential for fires and explosions such as the one that killed 47 people in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec last year. It would be the first such facility built so close to so many homes.

"The Federal Energy Regulation Commission chose to sacrifice the well-being of Maryland communities and endanger public health in favor of hefty profits for Dominion Resources," said Wenonah Hauter of Food & Water Watch. "At a time when citizens should be looking to their political leaders to help lead them away from destructive fossil fuels toward a more sustainable energy future, they are working hand-in-glove with the oil and gas lobby, enabling a process that continues to sacrifice communities and the potential for a healthier environment."

Opponents said that FERC's Environmental Assessment was inadequate and that it failed to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement, brushing aside the wider impacts on the community of the project and community opposition to it. Two weeks ago, a group of citizens, including members of Calvert County for a Healthy Community, went to the monthly FERC meeting in D.C. to make their voices heard after 250,000 comments in opposition were filed, 1,000 people marched to FERC headquarters in D.C. in July for a sit-in that resulted in 25 arrests, and the commissioners failed to show up at a hearing in their area.