THE VIEW of Elba Island is about to get a lot more crowded.
In 2013, Kinder Morgan (KM) announced plans to expand the liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility located five miles from downtown on the Savannah River, which it bought from El Paso Corporation in 2010.
Earlier this month, members of the local Sierra Club shared the KM proposal filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that reveals the hard details of what it will take to develop the site from an import-only facility into a full-service plant capable of liquefying and exporting 4 million tons of LNG per year.
According to the proposal, the prominent cluster of blue tanks will soon be joined by 10 liquefaction units, anchored by pilings driven 100 feet below ground.
Also in store for the 840-acre island are 11 new buildings, including one for hazardous material storage, plus a a new network of paved roads and a marked increase in lighting and noise.
“This is basically changing the entire geography of the island,” says Coastal Georgia Sierra Club researcher Stacey Kronquest, adding that the $1.5 billion project will have a significant impact on the surrounding wetlands.
The expansion is also changing the overall function of the facility: Built in the 1970s to regasify already liquefied natural gas imported from foreign markets and pump it out via pipeline across the U.S., Elba Island will now reverse its purpose.
Up to 2.5 million tons of domestic natural gas will flow through the pipeline and be liquefied on site, requiring an entirely different set of equipment and chemical refrigerants than previously utilized.
The LNG will then be shipped out via tankers to foreign markets instead of in, a market reversal dictated by the massive increase in natural gas harvested in the shale basins of the Midwest and other parts of the U.S. and extracted by the controversial process known as fracking.
Kronquest, a writer and Savannah-based professor who teaches at the University of Maryland, has been closely following the operations at Elba Island since the last expansion 10 years ago.
She obtained Kinder Morgan’s latest resource report directly from federal regulators, who are currently reviewing the project’s economic feasibility and its plans to transport equipment and materials to the island.
“I read FERC documents for fun,” she laughs.
At the Oct. 14 presentation, Kronquest raised other concerns relayed in the 1000+ page report, including the tripling of electricity used by the facility and a 700 percent increase in carbon and greenhouse gas discharge.
According to the FERC report, the project will result in emissions increases exceeding provided thresholds, and “a major NSR [New Source Review] analysis is required for these air pollutants.” The New Source Review is a permitting program under the Clean Air Act.
Among the report’s most disconcerting statistics were the staggering 10,000 trucks a month cited for the first year of construction to deliver materials—roughly 330 vehicles a day traveling along Bay and President streets and the Truman Parkway.
“They’ll tear those roads right up,” commented one attendee.
Kinder Morgan representative Melissa Ruiz assures that those numbers are a “maximum case” scenario and many of the vehicles could originate from local suppliers.
“It represents a rough estimate of truck activity during construction,” wrote Ruiz in an email.
“Kinder Morgan has been investigating and will continue to investigate other forms of transportation such as water transport to reduce traffic to and from the facility. As with any large construction project, there will be traffic congestion, but Kinder Morgan is working on ways to mitigate the congestion.”
Estimated truck traffic will drop to approximately 2800 per month in the second year of construction. A table in the report favors a combination of road, barge and shipping methods to minimize local impact, though it says that “trucking is anticipated to be the most prevalent form of material delivery into the Elba Island Project site and/or the specified project laydown areas.”
(Kinder Morgan, based in Houston, is also the company behind the proposed Palmetto Pipeline that has garnered major opposition in Georgia and South Carolina. The Palmetto Pipeline is unrelated to the Elba Island expansion, and KM is currently appealing its denial for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity by the Dept. of Transportation.)
As apprehensions related to the building of the new Elba site mount, ongoing concerns about public safety continue. Some believe the site is vulnerable to terrorist threat, while others have focused on risks associated with operations.
Kronquest has studied El Paso’s semi-annual operations reports starting from the last expansion in 2006 through 2010, when Kinder Morgan took over and reports were no longer made public.
“Reading through them, you see how many things happen there,” she says. “You see unexpected shutdowns, valve leaks—a number of documented near-misses, like when the wake of another ship jostled one the LNG tanker while it was being loaded.”
Also at issue is the age of the existing infrastructure.
“The thing that has always been a red flag for me is the age of the original tanks, which were built in the 70s and are now going on 40 years old,” says Kronquest.
Built before modern safety standards, the three original tanks at the site rely on surrounding berms to contain leaks and impound evaporating vapors.
“What’s interesting about it is that the one expansion FERC has turned down over the years was because of the impoundment issue,” says Kronquest, referring to the 2005 effort to expand a similarly antiquated LNG storage facility in Providence, Rhode Island.
Once the Elba facility is finished, daily operations will require regular truck deliveries of chemicals used in the liquefaction cooling process, including propane, ethylene, liquid nitrogen and aqueous ammonia. These materials add to the potential of what environmental policy expert Dr. Simona Perry calls the “vapor cloud explosion element.”
A Savannah native and vice president of the Pipeline Safety Coalition, Perry has joined the Sierra Club effort to raise public awareness about the possible impacts of the Elba Island expansion.
“Liquefaction is an inherently riskier process, because you’re using other highly flammable gases,” explains Perry. “If you’re not careful, those interactions can result in an explosion.”
LNG is not flammable in its liquefied form, though it does have the potential to ignite as a gas when it collects in a finite space.
The fear of spilled LNG becoming trapped in sewers caused public outcry about plans to truck the material through Savannah in 2010, but Perry says that the chemicals used in the export process that pose an even greater danger.
Perry cites the explosion at an export plant in Skikda, Algeria that killed 30 and injured 70 more in 2004. While the Skikda terminal used different infrastructure than those planned in the U.S., that tragedy caused the DOT to develop new regulations regarding liquefaction facilities.
In the event of a leak or other emergency at Elba Island, the Savannah Fire Department’s HazMat team is the first responder, with additional support from the Southside Fire Department. Kinder Morgan also contracts the Southside Fire Department for security and other basic operations.
“Elba has sent fire fighters in the past to the advanced LNG Fire Fighting School and will continue to work with local first responders on training activities and work with both fire departments to modify existing emergency response plans for the new facility,” writes KM’s Ruiz.
Last Tuesday, Kinder Morgan hosted a workshop for first responders and emergency managers to learn more about the proposed changes at Elba.
Representatives from Kinder Morgan were also present and accepted feedback and recommendations from the group, according to Chatham Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) public information officer Meredith Ley.
“Open communication regarding emergency preparedness and response is crucial in the interest of public safety,” says Ley.
She adds that the addition of liquefaction will not change the emergency notification response protocol at Elba Island and will continue follow the county code authored by the Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) in 2000.
“In the event of an accident involving a substance of a reportable quantity, the reporting party will notify 911 and dispatchers will then notify first responders. This process allows the reporting party to focus on the issue at hand,” clarifies Ley.
Kinder Morgan’s Elba Island public safety plan is not available to the public.
According to industry database Global LNG, the United States currently has only one liquefaction facility in operation on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. Four more are under construction, including one in Freeport, La. Fifteen more are planned or under study, most of them clustered along the Gulf Coast.
On the East Coast, FERC has already approved plans for LNG export terminals in Jacksonville, Fla., and Robbinston, Maine.
FERC will issue its environmental assessment for Elba Island in February 2016 unless it agrees to the Sierra Club’s request a full environmental impact statement.
The difference? About 6,000 pages.
“The EIS required of the last expansion was the size of a phone book, and that was only to build one additional tank,” says Kronquest. “I think this is worthy of a closer look.”
She describes an environmental assessment as “more of a sketch,” while an environmental impact statement provides a rigorous examination of how a project will affect quality of life.
As of now, Kinder Morgan expects to begin construction in May 2016. An EIS could delay Kinder Morgan’s plans to expand Elba Island by at least two years. But it will take the effort of local citizens to convince regulators that more investigation is needed.
“FERC decisions are based on cost,” explains Perry. “They want to look at what the cost to the nation is of building or not building this infrastructure, and people can comment on whether they think this a public convenience and necessity.”
Much of the work Perry has done with the Pipeline Safety Coalition is to help local communities claim their stake in multinational projects by filing for “intervenor status” through FERC.
The regulatory commission encourages public input on its website, and intervenors can receive all official documents filed for a particular case to stay informed.
“Becoming an intervenor gives people a way to be involved in the process and keep track of what’s going on,” explains Perry, adding that increased public participation led FERC to slow down permitting for an interstate pipeline in Massachusetts earlier this year.
She also encourages citizens to contact their local officials and state representatives about the proposed changes coming at Elba Island.
“FERC argues that it’s a geopolitical tool and it’s in the national interest,” she says.
“If there are enough people who can chime in on what they think about that, they might change their tune.”
This article appears in Nov 4-10, 2015.
The predictable and expected push-back by environmentalists to Kinder Morgan’s plans represents only one thread-bare side of the story. The other side is this: 26% poverty rate, out-of-control crime, poor and failing public schools, no capital, no growth, no job skills, the loss of Volvo, VW, Boeing, Caterpillar and only SEDA knows what else.
We need all the new jobs, new people and new capital we can get. Monitor FERC, monitor Kinder Morgan, but welcome them to this too poor corner of Georgia. And for God’s sake think long term, instead of like children refusing to eat what’s good for them.
These outsiders give a hoot less about anyone living in Savannah. LNG can kill you in an instant if it hits your lungs and there are records of mass deaths from “accidents” involving it, not to mention the danger of a powerful explosion.
Such an explosion flattened two city blocks in Ohio (Cleveland, I think, but I don’t have the research in front of me just now) during WWII. Not one stone standing on top of another.
This story is right about the crumbling old tanks on Elba Island and the bean-counters in Houston in charge of them. And “advanced firefighting school” my backside! There’s absolutely no way to “fight” an LNG explosion. The Coast Guard has standing orders to throw a big wake with their ships and boats to get as far away as fast as possible from any LNG “accident.” If one of these trucks tips over on Bay St. or gets involved in a serious crash and the gas begins leaking, it will be like a WWI Lewisite attack on everyone downtown, few of whom will survive.
Folks need to take a stand against this dreadful menace. Some stuffed shirt in Houston will say how “sorry” he is that 25,000 people here died when his truck ran into a ditch or a ship brushed against his tanker and ripped it open while it was full.
If the “accident” happens at night while people are sleeping, far more will die. A daytime “occurrence,” if broadcast in time by the electronic media, who might be willing to hold back on tire ads and pimple medicine commercials for a while, might allow a few people to race to their vehicles and escape.
Now just wait and see. Local paid grinning shills and loudmouth PR slickers, many of them associated with city hall, will soon begin chanting how wonderful LNG really is and what a boon to our community it will be in the end. This death-dealing monster has been roundly rejected by cities in California, Europe, and I believe in Algeria, where there was a serious accident some years ago with mass deaths.
If there is even a tiny spill here which only leaves a few hundred downtowners dead it will put a permanent end to the tourism boom here and ocean shippers who use the local port for non-LNG freight will begin to question the idea of continuing to drop anchor right next to a lurking LNG killer site or vessel. It would be an excellent idea to begin complaining right now to the state and federal governments about this killer threat. Local pols will soon be bought off–they could care less if you and your kids die coughing up your lungs in your courtyard.
There is a lot of research that has been done on this in Boston, where, I believe, the citizens turned back this menace a few years ago.
Boy! You are full of doomsday assumptions Alex, and almost no facts. But worse, still, you will have to go though life not having a clue about how an economy works and what drives community prosperity. No town this size needs prosperity and new blood and new thinking more than Savannah. Look at Charleston’s growth and I will rest my case.
The Left says we need high paying manufacturing jobs, well here they are.
Oh, but Global Warming is more important than the little people and their situation…never mind.
If this is such a great addition for the neighbors of Elba Island why are we now just hearing of the expansion. I, as a board member, to the closest residental unit, Causton Bluff, know many of my neighbors knew nothing of this expansion until today. The safety for the surrounding residents have not been considered. The real estate values are certainally at stake. The infrastructure, roads, emergency responders, and county and city planning have certainly not been planned for such a high risk experimental underground pipeline tank system. All the advanced medical and hazmat manpower would do nothing in an LNG explosion to the miles of humans closely exposed here. There are far to many other desolate sites in the US for Kinder Morgan to “Experiment” with their expansion. These human lives are far too important to the people who love them to be experimented with. LNG money can be made along stretchs of highway and waterways not so populated with our real estate values at risk. Kinder Morgan has many other real estate assets they can utilize not to endanger Savannahians and recover its cost by utilizing ELBA Island as a Grand residental developement on the waterway.
Joellen, I cannot explain why you and your neighbors are just now becoming aware of this project. A plan of this magnitude has been under consideration, discussion, and environmentalist howling since Kinder Morgan bought El Paso Natural Gas, the previous owner of Southern LNG, about 2 years now. I understand your concerns, but regarding property values, if you have not already been adversely affected I cannot imagine why the conversion of this facility from import and storage to export will have any further impact. Furthermore, the closest point from your neighborhood to the entrance to Elba Island is 1.8 miles away. Although we all have doubts about something regarding our government, it is hard to imagine that a project like this could ever get through state and federal energy regulatory commissions if there was any measurable threat to the community.
I dislike that there is all the false information being posted about this project and/or LNG in general. As a local Savannian I want people to be educated about this project before jumping to conclusions. For example: If you Google “LNG Explosion” you will probably get links to the Washington State incident and the Cleveland Ohio but there is a PDF presentation labeled “LNG Safety MYTHS and LEGENDS – National Energy Technology Laboratories” which is an easy to understand 30 page presentation about LNG.
Next, if you Google “LNG Myths” there is a 25 page educational PDF paper titled “Managing LNG Risks: Separating the Facts from the Myths.” This paper goes into great depths around common misconceptions of LNG. I highly recommend taking the time to at least glance over the myths and facts and then reading the conclusion – VERY informative.
My one last comment before ending. If this facility is so dangerous and unsafe to work in, why would there even be people working at the facility? Why would they risk their lives every single day for a job that is so incredibly “unsafe?” I ask that you do a little research before coming to conclusions, I spent 30 minutes browsing the internet to read and find those two mentioned articles above, I ask you at least do the same to back any controversy you may have.
Truss, old buddy, I somehow passed all my economics courses in college. I can see that you are a “happy-talker” and a spinner. I’ll lay odds that you get paid by these villains, who are even now hitting all the civic clubs with glowing stories about just how great this poison is, then making their cash “donation,” all of it step one in winning hearts and minds–exactly the way good old Jimmy Jones did it! Drink the Kool-aid, then sleep, sleeeeeeeeeep. Am I right? Of course I am.
These aren’t “factory” jobs, only a few truck-driving positions so as to get this killer poison down into our neighborhoods, possibly some “security’ positions–and there is zero security against a serious LNG leak–the job will be for someone who can hopefully live long enough to get to a phone and warn the rest of us that one of those ancient tanks has blown a seam and that an agonizing death is on the way, where we drop to all fours in our back yards with our kids and start coughing up bloody foam.
“Prosperity” does no one any good if that person is stretched out on a cooling board, and, based on the terrible tragedy long ago in Cleveland and more recent mass deaths caused by this killer in Spain and Algeria, the odds are that it can and will happen here.
I call upon that coalition which formed a few years ago to battle this dreadful threat to re-form and get back into fighting mode, take up the figurative cudgel against these carpet-baggers who want to risk our families’ lives to make money.
This has come here because several cities in California, Mexico, Texas, and most recently in the Boston area have rejected this evil menace to their lives. These out-of-town manipulators and medicine-show barkers obviously don’t think we’re smart enough to challenge their death-wish plans. I hope to god we can show them different.