Council Set to Vote on LNG Plant at Port

The Long Beach City Council is poised to vote earlier than planned on a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal, spurred on by criticism that council members have avoided taking a stand on the plan for more than two years.

The vote is shaping up as a referendum on the safety and economics of the terminal, which could be the first onshore LNG terminal on the West Coast. It comes amid mounting public concerns nationwide about the safety of building such terminals in urban areas. Recent safety reports have concluded that an accident involving LNG tankers and terminals could create a large fire, making such facilities potential terrorist targets.

Mayor Beverly O’Neill and council members infuriated local LNG critics last week when they unexpectedly delayed a vote until June 21 on whether to end talks with a Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary that wants to build a terminal for imported LNG at the Port of Long Beach, the nation’s second-largest seaport.

Now, three council members opposed to the terminal plan to introduce a motion Tuesday to terminate those talks.

“My feeling is, we owe it to the public to come to a decision,” said Councilman Frank Colonna, who is proposing the motion with council members Rae Gabelich and Bonnie Lowenthal.

Colonna questioned the wisdom of locating an LNG terminal only two miles from the city’s refurbished downtown, which includes the Queen Mary, the Aquarium of the Pacific, a marina and a new restaurant and entertainment complex.

“I think it’s clear that Long Beach is not the right city for this project,” Colonna said.

A fourth council member, Tonia Reyes Uranga, plans to offer a separate motion that would delay a decision. She believes that the nine-member council should wait until an environmental study is completed in late summer or early fall.

Reyes Uranga noted that her district, on the city’s westside, is grappling with air pollution from the port and the trucks and railroads that serve it. If the LNG terminal is determined to be safe, it would provide cleaner-burning LNG for city vehicles, improving air quality, she said.

The promise that the facility would produce 1,000 construction jobs is also attractive, she said.

Mitsubishi, too, has urged the council to wait for the environmental impact reports.

“We believe that there’s a rush to judgment on this issue that doesn’t make sense,” said Jeffrey Adler, a spokesman for Sound Energy Solutions, the Mitsubishi subsidiary.

The terminal would contain two 160,000-cubic-meter receiving tanks. Tankers would deliver LNG to the terminal roughly every three days.

The City Council does not have the power to cancel the terminal outright. Mitsubishi has a May 2003 letter of intent with the city-owned port, which is governed by a separate Board of Harbor Commissioners appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council. Under the city charter, commissioners have jurisdiction over the land where the port operates. The commissioners -- not the council -- would have to terminate the project, said City Atty. Robert E. Shannon.

So council members opposed to the project are using a different tactic.

Under the current letter of intent, a lease between Mitsubishi and the port would hinge on a separate agreement between the Tokyo-based company and the city on pipeline construction and LNG sales to the city-owned utility.

The motion from Colonna and his colleagues would end the talks with Mitsubishi, in turn undermining the letter of intent, Shannon said.

“Would it legally prevent the port from negotiating with [Mitsubishi]? No,” Shannon said. “Would it effectively prevent them from negotiating? That’s a question someone else would have to answer, because it’s a political consideration.”

Port officials have said they are negotiating for the facility because the city would benefit, Shannon added. “If the city says no,” he said, “then, effectively, the reason for negotiating goes away.”

Adler, speaking for Mitsubishi, said the effect of cutting off talks with the city “is extremely unclear, but we do not believe it kills the project.”