One of my Lusby neighbors was told by the Calvert Emergency Planning Office that, in event of an evacuation, Cove Point residents could drive under a burning vapor cloud to the neighboring, highly populated development of Chesapeake Ranch Estates, with its maze of winding roads. The response to these questions from Dominion and local officials has been utterly insufficient. How will everyone evacuate in the case of a catastrophic event? How far could potential vapor gas cloud or flash fire catastrophes spread into the neighborhoods right next door? Is the 60-foot-tall, three-quarter-mile long barrier wall Dominion has proposed building along the perimeter really for sound abatement, as Dominion originally claimed, or vapor cloud containment, as the company later confirmed to federal regulators, or fire-blocking, as Dominion apparently told Shymansky? Recently, a local assistant fire chief, Mickey Shymansky, resigned over concernsthat this department is neither trained nor equipped to handle an LNG-related emergency.įor months, my neighbors and I have been demanding answers. Census, and is serviced by an all-volunteer fire department. The zip code of Lusbyof which Cove Point is a partis home to more than 24,000 residents according to the 2010 U.S. In addition to nearly 600 homes, there are several schools, daycare and senior facilities, churches, and a major public park in close proximity to Cove Point. In Opal, 95 residents in a five mile radius were evacuated.īy comparison, in Lusby there are 2,473 people living within one mile around Dominion Cove Point. The explosion could be felt as far away as six miles. Four hundred people in a two-mile radius were evacuated in Plymouth, across the river. The fire at Natrium burned for seven hours. These facts are significant because in the previously mentioned explosions, the area of evacuation was much smaller than the densely populated area surrounding Cove Point. And, as another Lusby neighbor, Lili Sheeline, wrote to our local newspaper, the Calvert Recorder, Dominions facility will have far more equipment squeezed in to a facility footprint only a fraction larger than the one that exploded in Wyoming, posing a far greater risk of accidents that could spiral out of control. Dominions current proposal would require the addition of new hazardous facilities to supercool the gas and require expanded transportation and storage of highly volatile chemicals, like liquid propane, involved in that process. He found a 2006 report by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources showing that a flash fire from a LNG storage tank at Dominions current import facility could already threaten a 4,265-foot consequence zone around the plantan area which includes hundreds of homes. My neighbor Dale Allison, a former aerospace engineer with the Navy, has dug into what that could mean for our community, and his findings are alarming. would be located so close to so many people. No other LNG export facility proposed in the U.S. These facts are highly significant because the potential consequences of a similar explosion at Dominions proposed Cove Point LNG export facilityin Lusby could be far more severe. On April 23, another major gas processing facility exploded in Opal, WY, forcing the evacuation of the entire town of about 95 residents. On March 31, an LNG plant exploded in Plymouth, WA, injuring five workers and rupturing an LNG storage tank, resulting in the formation of a flammable vapor gas cloud. 13, 2013, a gas processing facility partly owned by Dominion Resources exploded in Natrium, WV. These are facts, not mere speculation: on Sept. In the process, Ive returned again and again to this question: Is my safetyand that of the thousands of families living within several miles of this projecta significant concern to federal regulators? Originally posted to EcoWatch byKaren Gibbs, Calvert Citizens for a Healthy CommunityĪs a resident of the town of Lusby, MD, where a Virginia-based energy giant Dominion Resourceswants to build a massive $3.8 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility, Ive sought out and received a significant education on the safety risks inherent in this industry over the past year.
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