Attorney General Calls Fracked Gas Review Fictional
by Darren Moore
The Washington State Attorney General’s Office has called the recent Environmental review for the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant being built on Medicine Creek Treaty land at the Port of Tacoma “fictional.” The AG’s office and the State Department of Ecology recently submitted written comments to the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency (PSCAA) regarding a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (DSEIS) that could have substantial long-term impacts on the rights and lives of the Puyallup Tribe as well as local citizens.
This no ordinary communication, the AG’s comment not only questioned the research done in the DSEIS, it openly mocked it. The AG pointed out that the DSEIS evaluates a No-Action Alternative that can only be described as fictional since the facility has already been built, pipes have already been laid, and infrastructure has been in place for years. The letter suggested that PSCAA’s SEPA process allowed a ‘snowballing effect’ that the WA State Supreme Court warned about in a 1993 boundary dispute case, largely aimed at their delay ordering an SEIS.
The AG also reminded the Air Agency that they had issued the builders a Notice of Violation as far back as April 2017 for working without a Notice of Construction, yet the agency hasn’t enforced or even investigated continued construction. The DSEIS, the AG suggests, “appears to assume that construction, and therefore impacts of construction, are still contingent on the selection of an alternative.” The AG’s letter takes exception to this and calls these assumptions “plainly incorrect” and repeatedly points out that the DSEIS does not reflect reality.
The SEIS was ordered by PSCAA with a specific scope to assess Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions over the plants lifetime and to compare the effect of those versus a situation in which the plant doesn’t exist at all. The Attorney Generals letter agreed that the DSEIS should ensure that it applies the most current, valid, peer-reviewed assessment of the global warming potential of emissions related to this project. The AG’s comments also question the source of the fracked gas and the assumptions made about it.
The State Department of Ecology told the agency via its own written comment that “if all gas is from Canada that this would cause fuel shuffling that would see an increase in non-Canadian gas for other projects.” The DOE also states that they don’t understand how peak shaving could result in a net emissions decrease because energy is needed to liquefy the natural gas and that the reconverted (from LNG) gas should be evaluated against natural gas thermal combustion or power generation.
This could be the turning point that the Puyallup Water Warriors and their allies have been waiting for. If the DSEIS is revised to meet the criteria the AG and the DOE required, then the report wouldn’t be favorable, and the project should collapse. The points made in these letters are incredibly important and should have major ramifications on the decision-making process.
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