Long Beach to Continue Talks on Energy Plant

The Long Beach City Council decided Wednesday to continue talks with the developer of a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal at the city’s harbor, although none of the nine council members appears to decisively favor the plan.

In the early morning vote, the council split 5-4, divided between those firmly opposed to the $450-million gas facility proposed by a Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary and those who want to wait for an environmental review before taking a stand.

The decision came after more than three hours of tangled, sometimes angry debate among council members and occasional outbursts from more than 300 gas supporters and opponents who crowded into City Hall.

The gas issue has deeply divided the Long Beach area, as it has a number of cities on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts where terminals to import natural gas have been planned.

The vote appears to guarantee that the battle over the gas terminal would continue until 2006, when the environmental review is to be completed.

The energy industry is seeking to import natural gas in liquid form from overseas in the face of shrinking domestic supplies and rising prices. Companies have proposed or discussed more than 40 terminals, provoking debate in many cities.

Opponents in Long Beach fear an accident or terrorist attack at the terminal, which would be located less than two miles from the city’s downtown and cause a catastrophic fire. Proponents hope it will be a source of high-paid union jobs and clean, cheap fuel.

The next major hurdle in Long Beach is expected in mid-September, when the state and federal environmental reports are to be issued in draft form and be considered at public hearings.

Despite lukewarm support from council members, the vote was a victory for Tokyo-based Mitsubishi and its partner in the project, ConocoPhillips. The companies had urged the council not to consider the vote as for or against the project, but to wait for the environmental reports.

“The vote last night was a vote for the process and not for the project,” Mitsubishi spokesman Jeffrey Adler said Wednesday.

Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga, who led the fight to continue the talks, said, “I tend to agree that probably a populated area is not the best place for [a gas facility], but we do have the proposal on the table and an application that was submitted.”

She added, “It’s our responsibility to get as much information to whether it can be a cleaner source of alternative fuel and whether it can be of economic benefit. And if it can’t, we kill it.”

Project critics countered that by not passing judgment, the city is enmeshing itself even further in an approval process over which it has virtually no control. They also pointed out that the council’s power to cancel the plant, if it wants to do so later, is unclear at best.

Councilwoman Rae Gabelich, a leader in the bid to halt the talks, said she was bewildered that her colleagues could listen to Long Beach residents opposed to the project and still vote to continue dealing with Mitsubishi. “We will be known as the council that didn’t protect them. I find that extremely offensive,” Gabelich said.

Elisa Trujillo, 55, of the city’s Willmore City Historic District, chastised the council for considering a gas terminal so close to her neighborhood, which is heavily populated with Latino immigrants.

“I have no doubt that the placement of this gas facility would be the mother of all environmentally racist acts,” she told the council. She added after the vote: “I’m extremely scared for everybody that lives within a two-mile radius.”

But Richard Slawson, executive secretary of the Los Angeles/Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council, lauded the council’s decision.

“We think it’s an absolute victory that the process will continue,” said Slawson, who hopes construction of the terminal will create 1,000 union jobs.

Slawson said Mitsubishi had committed to hiring local workers and paying locally negotiated wages and benefits. And the supply of gas would help the economy, he said.

The city’s harbor commissioners in May 2003 granted Mitsubishi a three-year agreement to try to develop the property. The city has been pursuing separate talks regarding a pipeline and natural gas sales to the city-owned utility. Those talks are what the council voted to continue. Port Executive Director Richard Steinke told the council before the vote that, whatever the council decided, the port would continue preparing its environmental impact report. State law requires the port to finish a review once it has been started, he said.

The five-member Harbor Commission will review the state environmental report and decide whether the gas terminal is acceptable, while the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will do the same with the federal impact report.

A Harbor Commission decision can be appealed to the City Council, which could vote to uphold that decision or return the environmental reports to the port for further work. But it cannot cancel the project on its own, city officials said.

Steinke said Wednesday that the port’s top concern is safety. “Sometimes that gets lost when there’s a lot of emotion in the debate.”

Project critic Bry Myown said that she viewed the vote as evidence of the port’s power.

“This very clearly says that the port is allowed to hurt people,” she said. “It’s more important than not only residents’ quality of life but residents’ lives.”

But Reyes Uranga said that the terminal could provide liquefied natural gas to be used as vehicle fuel in place of diesel.

Plant supporters, she said, include “working-class people who wanted the jobs and wanted their kids to be breathing easier because they live on the westside.”