Delaware Riverkeepers claim to have company’s secret plans for LNG terminal in Eddystone
Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living (CRCQL) will hold a webinar Wednesday, June 24, at 7 p.m. to disclose “secret corporate plans” to build a liquid natural gas export terminal in Eddystone. Register for the webinar below.
Neither residents nor the public has been informed of the plans for an “enormous, dangerous facility that would be set in their neighborhoods, on their riverfront, polluting air and watersheds and jeopardizing the regional communities’ public safety,” the two organizations said in a release announcing the webinar.
The Delaware Riverkeepers Network has obtained files showing drawings, maps, property acquisition plans, company confidentiality agreements and more, the announcement says. The group will share these documents in the webinar. To register, click HERE.
Franc James, the CEO of Penn America Energy Holdings met White House officials to “provide intelligence” about the project last year and said then that the company is considering several locations, other than Chester, to locate a terminal. He specifically mentioned Eddystone.
In order for the fracking industry and the state to cash in on LNG exports to other countries, they necessarily would have to build along a navigable stretch of the Delaware River somewhere between Marcus Hook and the Philadelphia import terminal.
Gov. Shapiro’s Republican opponent, State Treasurer Stacy Garrity, is openly campaigning on a business-friendly platform that includes support for an LNG terminal somewhere along the river. Shapiro’s administration has not taken a similar stance, and there is no indication that he is actively pushing for such a project.
Environmentalists and local residents are fiercely opposed to an LNG terminal both because of the threat of more pollution to an already heavily overburdened area and because of the danger of explosion that could potentially wipe out homes and businesses in a two-mile radius of the plant. A terminal would also mean trains would carry LNG through heavily populated areas and new pipelines would be built through Delaware County to transport LNG to the terminal.
Last November, Rep. Greg Vitali, chair of the PA House Environment and Natural resources Committee, held a public hearing in Chester that raised the question, are plans for an LNG terminal along the riverfront progressing out of public view? Perhaps Riverkeepers and CRCQL have some answers.
By Jodine Mayberry for the Delaware County Clearinghouse.
