Residents support natural gas bill

Legislation would prevent Washington Gas facility from being built in Chillum

‘‘[This bill] is written specifically to create a barrier for Washington Gas to gain approval to build an LNG storage facility at our Chillum property,” said Steven Jumper, director of regional public policy for Washington Gas. ‘‘More importantly, this bill hinders our company in meeting our statutory obligation to the citizens and businesses of Maryland to provide safe and reliable supply to them at a reasonable cost.”

But residents say the facility could potentially be unsafe to the surrounding communities if anything went wrong, and could potentially draw terrorists.

‘‘No facility is perfectly safe, and no residential neighborhood should be subjected to that kind of vulnerability,” Imani Kazana, a founding member of the Washington Gas Watch Alliance, said at the hearing.

But Thomas Moskitis, managing director of external affairs for the American Gas Association, said there are currently LNG facilities in highly populated areas, such as downtown Baltimore near Camden Yards.

‘‘The industry has a very clean safety record,” he said. ‘‘There have been no deaths or serious injuries ... in over 60 years.”

The bill, proposed by Del. Jolene Ivey (D-Dist. 47) of Cheverly and the Prince George’s County delegation, would require facilities to meet stricter standards for the placement. It would prohibit LNG facilities from being built in Prince George’s and require that the facility be outside an acceptable separation distance from any residence, calculated by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development safety standards.

‘‘[The standards] are the same as federally funded housing projects that come through HUD,” said Stuart Eisenburg at the hearing, who is also a member of Washington Gas Watch Alliance.

Kazana said the current LNG site standards are ‘‘inadequate and outdated.”

For example, current standards require that people have a 30-second time frame to react to a possible explosion at the facility, which could cause second-degree burns, Kazana said.

‘‘The average citizen that’s walking or playing baseball in a park...or waiting on a Metro platform, what are they going to do in 30 seconds? They won’t know what’s going on and they won’t know what to do to protect themselves,” she said.

Ivey said the current standards are intended for more industrial areas.

‘‘[The proposed] standards are more stringent,” she said. ‘‘They protect the vulnerable community – the elderly community, the handicapped community and children.”

Residents have suggested that Washington Gas find another site in the county.

‘‘There are acceptable locations within the county,” Kazana said. ‘‘I know there are vast amounts of land owned by federal government, state government and county government [that could be used instead].”

But Washington Gas has not been successful in finding alternative locations, Jumper said.

‘‘If Washington Gas is not permitted to construct the LNG Chillum facility, the next most likely alternative to meet our public service obligations will result in substantially higher costs to Maryland customers in each of the six counties served by the company,” he said.

Jumper said building and operating the facility in Chillum would cost about $164 million over 20 years. However, if Washington Gas is unable to build a facility, Jumper said it would have to construct about 25 miles of piping through three counties and enter into more expensive, long-term gas supply and transportation contracts and purchase more expensive natural gas, costing $687 million over 20 years.

‘‘[That would result] in Maryland ratepayers paying over $522 million over 20 years in costs that otherwise can be avoided,” he said.

E-mail Maya T. Prabhu at mprabhu@gazette.net.