Dans Papers - May 18, 2007 - Broadwater Business

Energy relief or future target? Broadwater, the highly debated energy facility came to attention once again in a hearing at Brookhaven Town Hall on May 7. This time the focus was on, "Can the Coast Guard protect Broadwater?"

The U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee questioned whether the Coast Guard could protect the proposed LNG (liquefied natural gas) facilities and still operate with other Coast Guard duties. Essentially, a "field hearing" is a replica of what is done in the formality of a "Congressional fact-finding event." There is an opportunity to listen to the experts and see what the fact-finding panel has to say.

According to the Broadwater proposal, it is felt that "locating the proposed Broadwater facility offshore, 9 miles from Long Island and 10 miles from Connecticut, provides the public with a safety buffer. The facility's remote location, at least nine miles from the nearest shoreline, together with procedures developed with the U.S. Coast Guard and other emergency response resources, ensures the safety of Long Island Sound communities."

Is this true? Is Broadwater far enough away and well designed enough to offer Long Islander's safety? Should a system of security be provided by Broadwater or is it up to us to utilize our Coast Guard?

In this case, the question is how much is too much for our Coast Guard? Is it their responsibility to monitor Broadwater? On a typical day the Coast Guard could be doing any of the following: monitoring ships for safety and completing inspections, guarding ports from illegal activities and being on guard for terrorism, stopping drug trafficking, and trafficking of illegal goods, monitoring the coastline for illegal entrants to the U.S., handling clean-ups and spills and protecting citizens. Now add monitoring Broadwater to the list, is it going to be too much, or work out fine? What would be our alternative to offer protection to our citizens?

In Baltimore, Coast Guard officials answered the questions and focused on the concerns of the citizens still up in the air about whether Broadwater should be a go and do they have everything in place to make it work? This issue came into focus at the Baltimore field hearing when it was proposed that Sheriff's deputies would be trained to protect the Cove Point facility. The hearing came to fruition at the request of Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southampton) who opposes the construction of Broadwater.