Planning Permission for Shannon LNG Terminal

Submission by Safety Before LNG / Kilcolgan Residents Association (KRA) to the An Bord Plean�la Oral Hearing on the Shannon LNG Terminal Planning Application

ORAL HEARING SUBMISSION on proposed LNG Terminal at Tarbert (ref PA0002).

Kilcolgan Residents Association

c/o Johnny McElligott

Island View,

Convent Street,

Listowel,

County Kerry

January 23^rd, 2008

b. The department of Agriculture and the department of Environment have requested more environmental information from the applicant in their submissions to An Bord Pleanala, the result of which we would like to assess and have a right of reply on.

c. We are awaiting the results of a Marine Risk Assessment to be carried out by the Shannon and Foynes Port Company

d. We have been refused information on the SemEuro application PC0008 by An Bord Pleanala

2. The safety issue is our main priority. We note that there is no one statutory body to give overall safety advice to An Bord Pleanala on overall safety of the project. The HSA are giving Land-use planning advice without taking any Marine Risk Assessments into account. The Marine Risk Assessments will not be carried out until after planning permission is given. The HSA, ignored the detailed KRA submission to it on January 10^th 2008⁴, one day before the deadline given by it for public submissions because it actually ruled on January 9^th 2008 that it was not advising against the granting of planning permission. The HSA has since agreed (on January 15^th 2008)⁵ that it will now review the material we submitted (with the help of 3 world-renowned LNG experts), which could alter the view of the Authority.

3. We object that if an exclusion zone is implemented which prevents other port use and other land use of the remainder of the landbank, then Shannon Development will have broken the aims of the land as the County Development Plan site them as being lands “for a premier deep-water port and for major industrial development and employment creation”. This land was sold under pressure with the understanding in the media over manner years that it was being done for the common good. Less than 50 jobs is not a relatively major employment creation. If no other industrial can or will come onto the remainder of the site then this will have broken planning policy for this site. The land has been held in trust for the people of North Kerry and Shannon Development has admitted that they have no information on the exclusion zones of the proposed development⁶. If there are to be exclusion zones on the remainder of the site or shore then this application should be rejected.

4. Dr. Jerry Havens, world authority on LNG, has flown in especially from America to attend this oral hearing. We already asked the HSA and Shannon and Foynes Port Company to be present so that Dr. Havens may question and be questioned by them in order to ensure that as many of the safety issues as possible be covered in this short timeframe. From the Kilcolgan Residents perspective, advice on Land Use Planning issues do not represent an independent analysis of all the safety issues by any statutory body so we would urgently request that this opportunity to get a better understanding of all the safety issues involved  from Dr. Havens in person is seized upon. Because of extremely limited resources, the KRA is of the opinion that our role is in raising issues of concern to us – it is the job of the statutory bodies to deal with the safety issues completely and cohesively and not in the piece-meal manner that seems to be taking place here to date.

5. Article 5.1 of the Seveso II directive states: “Member States shall ensure that the operator is obliged to take all measures necessary to prevent major accidents and to limit their consequences for man and the environment”. This means that as we have found safer alternatives (e.g. offshore) then that safer alternative should be used instead of the current one. Article 12 is more specific on this when it states “Member States shall ensure that the objectives of preventing major accidents and limiting the consequences of such accidents are taken into account in their land use policies and/or other relevant policies. They shall pursue those objectives through controls on … the siting of new establishments”

6. We have had no time to prepare for the oral hearing in any meaningful way because the oral hearing was called two days before the two-week break for Christmas for January 21^st 2008.

7. Alternatives to the proposed Shannon LNG development include:

b. GBS: Gravity Based Strucure fixed to the seabed. Shannon LNG say that GBS (e.g. Exxons one in Italy Isola de levante) are expensive (1 billion), ( it’s only twice the price – that’s not a planning concern – safety is) They say that they still have “some impact on other marine users (especially fishing) as well as visual impacts from their location close to shore). So do we have in Tarbert. They also say they lack the ability to be constructed in phases or expanded.. So they must plan to build only 2 in Tarbert and have construction going on for years. They also say that GBS and FSRUs have been largely abandoned by the LNG industry but Exxon mobil have just announced a new plans for and FSRU 20 miles off the coast of New Jersey.⁹

c. DockSide Terminal. Also the only one is in Teesside¹⁰ run by Exclerate Energy which uses the same technology as submerged Buoys, Shannon LNG say that the problem with these non-storage systems is that they use only a special type of LNG ship. However it only cost 40 million to build (that is 10 times cheaper) and can be built quicker.

d. Submerged OffShore Buoy Technology: Excelerate Energy run the only one in the world in the Gulf Gateway Terminal 116 miles off the coast of Louisiana and Shannon LNG question the acceptance of this type of technology by LNG suppliers as there is no storage (pumps straight into a pipleline). However, Excelerate Energy also has received its Record of Decision from the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) for approval of the company’s Northeast Gateway Deepwater Port LNG facility in Massachusetts Bay, 13 miles south southeast of Gloucester, scheduled to be operational in December 2007.

f. Do not use Corrib Gas unless needed i.e. continue to import via the interconnector (BGE say that our medium-term needs have been secured with this) and use the Corrib Gas when all else dries up i.e. the government should be the one to decide when the gas should be used.

This statement by Minister Ryan is interpreted by us as the Minister giving more importance to the announcement of the Kinsale storage facility being the fist such storage facilty in Ireland and is only speaking of Shannon LNG’s “planned development” as a supporting aside.

The Seveso 2 Directive says that major accident hazards should be avoided in site selection so the selection of an alternative site is crucial in the evaluation of this proposal by An Bord Pleanala.

h. .LNG that will be delivered to Milford Haven in Wales and is already being received through Teeside can be received in the Irish network through the existing pipeline from the UK (so the Welsh take the risks and we get the gas).

8. Underground Tanks in Japan were identified as way of reducing risks¹³. We question that this was not considered purely on economic grounds.

9. The Issues we are focussing on :

a. The safety issue: The LNG company focus on the low probability of an accident; we are focussing on prudence in planning and the consequences of an accident – and the strong fear of the dangerous precedent set in the UK where an LNG terminal was built near a massive petroleum storage facility by SemLogistics at Milford Haven (whose sister-company SemEuro have applied for consideration for fast-track planning for an equivalent site near the proposed LNG terminal here in Ireland with the same cascading risks).

c. The national interest: The gas company has been targeting policy-makers over the last few years to say that LNG is in the national interest as another source of gas; our argument is that the LNG that will be delivered to the UK can be received in the Irish network through the existing pipeline from the UK (so the Welsh take the risks and we get the gas); also, the importation of huge amounts of this fossil fuel will have a crowding-out effect on the development of other renewable energies since Ireland is already one of  Europe's largest importers of fossil fuels.

d. The best alternative site in Ireland has not been chosen - The Second International Conference of Renewable Energy in Maritime Island Climates held in University College Cork in April 2006 suggested that Cork, close to the existing Kinsale Gas Field in the south, would be an ideal site for an LNG terminal and we want this alternative examined more closely – as this area is not in a special area of conservation, unlike the Shannon Estuary: Des Brannigan has suggested Kinsale and is making a separate submission on that matter.

10. The KRA have petitioned the European Union Parliament for condemnation of breaches of EU Directives by An Bord Plean�la and the Irish “Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Act 2006” in the planning application for the first proposed LNG re-gasification terminal in Ireland and a top-tier Seveso II development and for condemnation of breaches of the SEA Directive by Kerry County Council for refusing to conduct a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) when rezoning lands from rural to industrial (Variation No. 7 County Development Plan 2003-2009) in preparation for the Shannon LNG application for planning permission¹⁴. We request that any decision on the proposed LNG terminal be postponed, awaiting the outcome of the EU petition.

11. The KRA have also complained about a breach of procedure at An Bord Pleanala¹⁵ which we believe compromises the independence of An Bord Pelanala in dealing with this application. An Bord Pelanala is also withholding vital environmental information on the intentions of SemEuro for a petroleum storage facility on the site adjacent to the proposed LNG terminal.

12. We have also made a formal complaint to the Office of the Ombudsman concerning a serious breach of procedure by Kerry County Council in rezoning land from Rural General to Industrial without undertaking a Strategic Environmental Assessment to enable the fast-tracking of the top-tier Seveso II proposed development by Shannon LNG to proceed as quickly as possible increasing the danger to the environment and our lives. This is currently under investigation by the Office of the Ombudsman reference L18/07/2518. We request that any decision on the proposed LNG terminal be postponed, awaiting the outcome of this complaint.

13. We have also forwarded this complaint to the Minister for the Environment requesting that he overturn this rezoning as it breached the Department’s own guidelines. The reference number there is REP4126/JG/07. We request that any decision on the proposed LNG terminal be postponed, awaiting the outcome of this complaint.

14. The “Prime Time” video¹⁶ concluded that vapour clouds do not evaporate harmlessly into the air as was claimed by Shannon LNG. Furthermore, the company sponsored trips by selected influential local figures to foreign LNG plants which were lavish on drink and weak on meaningful information. It is claimed that the public information day at Ballylongford GAA hall in April 2006 netted the local GAA club 1,200 Euro for something that should have cost no more than 20 or 30 euros. This was very questionable behaviour from our point of view on the part of Shannon LNG and has been interpreted by us as a company that is not transparent in the messages it has been given out to the general public.

15. Shannon Explosives Limited has reapplied for an explosives storage facility at Charercon further west of the Shannon LNG site on the opposite side of the Shannon Estuary at Cahercon. We ask that An Bord Pleanala examines the risk of accidents that causes for passing nearby LNG tankers and the risk of cascading effects from this application.

Appendix

1. KRA Petition to the European Parliament.

2. Complaint of Breach of procedure at An Bord Plenala

3. HSA Submission on QRA.

4. Request for information from the HSA

5. Request for information from Shannon Development

6. Assessment of the project by the HSA

7. Request for information from the Department of Energy, Communications and Natural Resources.

8. Dail Debate – Tuesday 27 November 2007.

9. Web pages referenced in the KRA oral submissio

Closing Submission by Johnny McElligott for the Kilcolgan Residents Association.

At the Oral Hearing On the proposed LNG terminal at Kilcolgan (ref PA0002).

January 29^th, 2008

Mr. Inspector, ladies and gentlemen.

On behalf of the Kilcolgan Residents Association, the KRA, I would first of all like to thank Mr. Andrew Boyle of An Bord Pleanala for chairing the oral hearing here over the last eight days. As individuals, he treated us with the greatest of respect. His calm and patient impartiality inspired all of us.

I would like to thank the Brandon Hotel for providing us with excellent conference facilities.

I would like to thank the sound engineers of McElligott Systems, I think it was, who, by the way, are no relations to me either in case you were wondering. They allowed everyone to be heard – even if some people really needed no microphones at all.

I would like to thank the members of the Statutory bodies who attended the meeting for being participants and witnesses to these proceedings.

I would like to thank Dr. Declan Downey for so eloquently showing to the outside world that we are not just a land bank; that there is a vibrant community deeply rooted in the kilcolgan area going back hundreds of years.

Lastly, and most of all, I would like to thank the people of Kilcolgan and the surrounding townlands for their forebearnce in this very stressful episode. Contrary to the impression that might be given by some local organisations and individuals, our experience during this hearing has only strengthened our confidence and resolve and, we in the KRA would also like to thank all of the people of Tarbert, Ballylongford and further afield who have given us their full support.

This has been a truly shocking experience for us to have to endure.

Out of nowhere Hess LNG had arrived announcing itself as the provider of a great source of new development in our beautiful part of North Kerry bringing safe, clean industry to the landbank with lots of jobs, When we started asking serious questions it was like the “Emperor’s New Clothes”. Pretend everything is okay and it will be. Do not push Hess LNG too much with awkward questions because they might just go away. Our elected representatives could not do enough for Hess LNG and did not seem willing to question them on any of the obvious safety issues that were becoming all too clear. At this Oral Hearing, only one politician spoke out. Our Member of the European Parliament for Munster, Ms. Kathy Sinnott, reminded us that LNG is, and I quote, “both dirty and dangerous” and stated quite clearly that it was not in the national interest. No other politician even thought the issue important enough to participate.

As for the local development associations in the nearby villages, all they could see were the Euro signs in their eyes. After a few enjoyable trips abroad to visit other LNG terminals they could see no wrong in a company that had been the first to splash any real cash around the area in a long time. Even the idea of trucks driving through the centre of Tarbert during the already-dangerous school hours at a rate of one every 4 to 5 minutes over several years does not even kick them into demanding a full dual carriageway bypass around Tarbert in the interest of safety, in case they might lose some business in the town. We are dismayed that the Ballylongford and Tarbert associations could not put together a fully-integrated and advanced proposal for proper dual carriageway bypass of Tarbert as is the norm of other places.

We believe that, in addition to our written submissions, the following issues have to be seriously taken on board by An Board Pleanala in making its decision on the project as they were highlighted throughout the hearing:

1. The Health and Safety Authority has admitted quite clearly that there are safety issues that it is not taking into consideration in its land-use planning advice to An Bord Pleanala and that it is currently reassessing the proposed project. We agree that a properly-informed HSA is the competent authority to make recommendations on safety, as long as it takes the consequences of an accident into consideration in its deliberations and not just the probability of an accident. This, we believe, will require direction from An Bord Pleanala and should include a Marine-based QRA that takes into consideration an LNG spill on water and that takes into consideration all other developments currently subject to project splitting. We should also condsider that considering that an accident will never nappen rather than “it will never happen“ to “what if it happens”

2. It is now blatantly obvious that what has come to the fore in this oral hearing is that Shannon Development and Kerry County Council have absolutely no regard for what happens to the remainder of the landbank. No definitive reports, studies or plans have been completed for the landbank and none are planned. This is in direct contravention of the county development plan which states that these lands are, and I quote, “for a premier deep-water port and for major industrial development and employment creation”. Incidentally, the applicant tried to confuse the issue yesterday by saying that a jetty, as is proposed for this development, is the same as a port. However, in the dictionary, a port is defined as a harbour, whereas a jetty is defined as a landing stage or small pier or a construction built out into the water to protect a harbour, riverbank, etc. It must now be clearly ascertained by An Bord Pleanala whether or not the proposed development will sterilise the remainder of the landbank, contrary to the aims of the current development plans as detailed above and contrary to proper and sustainable development of the entire landbank. In any case, the KRA has asked An Bord Pleanala to request that Shannon Development present An Bord Pleanala with a complete development plan for the development of the entirety of the landbank to include all proposed deep-water port facilities in the aim of creating large-scale employment possibilities as per the County and local development plans so that this project may ne assessed in its overall context.

3. An application for development over ten years is entirely unreasonable. The number of years given to allow development should equate to the time it takes to reasonably complete a development and it should not act as a cushion for a “wait-and-see” approach to economic considerations.

4. We believe that Seveso II regulations should be used as the basic benchmark standard to be applied on the estuary as it does on land. The applicant made a big issue during the week of where Seveso regulations applied – giving us the impression that they would cut corners in safety considerations outside of the establishment area covered by the Seveso Directive.

5. The area to be subjected to an emergency plan which must be tested at least every 3 years.should be determined before deciding on the planning application..

6. In March 2007, slightly over 10 months ago, the site was rezoned from Secondary Special Amenity to Industrial. It is clearly expressed in the Kerry County Development Plan that it is “an objective of the Council to protect the landscape of the county”. The zoning designation of Rural Secondary Special Amenity is defined as follows in section 11.2.8: “The landscape of areas in this designation is generally sensitive to development. Accordingly, development in these areas must be designed so as to minimise the effect on the landscape. Proposal designs should take account of the topography, vegetation, existing boundaries and features of the area. Permission will not be granted for development which cannot be integrated into its surroundings. Residential development will be considered for people wishing to establish a primary place of residence in accordance with the provisions of Section 3.3.7 of this plan. We would argue that just because the land was questionably rezoned industrial for this project, it does not mean that the landscape characteristics have changed since no development has taken place on the site since the rezoning. We find it unbelievable that any development 40 metres over Rallapane Ridge could even be considered.

7. We have petitioned the EU for condemnation of the rezoning of the land contrary to the SEA directive. We are confident that the EU will uphold our position regarding the validity of the rezoning by Kerry County Council. Realistically, An Bord Pelnaala has a duty to await the outcome of the EU petition and the corresponding complaint to the office of the Ombudsman as that will guide its decision on this application.

8. We refer the inspector to Bord Pleanala reports on its decision R218581 on the Combined waste and power facility at Ballard, Araglin, Fermoy, County Cork.

9. It is also obvious that the true picture of gas storage in Ireland is not clearly understood. The applicant fudged the issue on the storage of gas in the depleted gas fields there and it had to be pointed out by us that “The CER has granted a gas storage licence to Marathon Oil Ireland Ltd to make the full capability of its depleted Kinsale facility, which has a capacity of 7 billion cubic feet (bcf), available to third parties. This is the first such storage facility in Ireland and BGE has contracted to use over 5 bcf of it.” According to Minister Ryan in a dail debate on Movember 27^th, 2007. No decision should be made without having understood all these facts. We are of the opinion that it is accepted that from now until Peak Gas, our primary source of foreign gas will be via the interconnector from the UK, which will add to our indigenous supply. We question how we could even consider selling this site of North Kerry to an American multinational for 50 jobs and without guaranteeing supply.

10. We thank Shannon LNG for pointing out that the site beat 17 other sites as a suitable deep-water port and note from yesterday’s “Irish Examiner” that the Port of Cork Authority want to move the container terminal out of Tivoli as they currently have limited space to deal with a major increase in traffic. However, the County manager conceded he was concerned because the road from the proposed new site at Ringaskiddy was not updated in advance to dual carriageway standards and did not therefore think the project should go ahead. We therefore think that the landbank could be easily developed if the supporting infrastructure was developed.

11. It is obvious from what we heard all week that project splitting is still a current problem in this application and has not been dealt with to our satisfaction. This is also currently under petition to the EU and we urge An Bord Pleanala to await its outcome before making a decision.

Dr. Jerry Havens flew over from America for this oral hearing to confirm the veracity of our references to him in our submission confirming one unavoidable truth; LNG is a dangerous hazard. This in itself was an extremely powerful statement from one of the world’s most renowned LNG experts and we urge An Bord Pleanala to examine his submission very carefully as it was not contradicted by the applicants who clearly stated that they did not disagree with anything Dr. Havens said. We thank Dr. Havens for the huge effort he made at such short notice and can only admire the fact that there are still people of honour around who search for the truth. He stated that for LNG tankers, if, and I quote,“cascading failures of the ship’s containments were to occur, it could result in a pool fire on water with magnitude beyond anything that has been experienced to my knowledge, and in my opinion could have the potential to put people in harm’s way to a distance of approximately three miles from the ship. I have testified repeatedly that I believe that the parties that live in areas where this threat could affect them deserve to have a rational, science-based determination made of the potential for such occurrences, no matter how unlikely they may be considered”. He stated that in siting terminals it was important to consider the potential consequences of LNG releases from the Terminal and from LNG ships.

This message was very simple and supported by video evidence of the type of fireball created by a spill of less than 50 cubic metres on the Falcon Test series in 1987 shown by Dr. Havens for the first time ever in public.

The idea of forcing local people to live with the idea for the rest of their lives that an accident will cause them certain death is a very grave proposition indeed. It is certainly not something to be laughed at. The CEO of Hess LNG, Gordon Shearer, seemed to be very amused at this hearing on Friday January 25^th when he laughingly confirmed that he had indeed stated that if there is catastrophic accident at the LNG terminal it would be, and I quote “the largest Roman Candle in the World”. In any case, section 12.10.3 of the County Development Plan clearly states that “Any industrial or commercial development shall not be injurious to the residential amenity of adjoining properties”.

This gets to the heart of the problem in our minds. Corporate Social Responsibility is not just another buzz phrase in this modern world of ours. Hess LNG has no other LNG importation terminal in the world. The other site where they have been attempting to get planning permission at Fall River in the USA has stalled on safety grounds. Hess LNG has spent millions of dollars trying to force this application through over there and we believe this arrogance and willingness to contradict all safety advice on the Fall River project cannot now be overlooked by An Bord Pleanala. We are indeed of the opinion that Gordon Shearer and his company are becoming a problem from the point of view of the industry itself. Hess LNG tried to rubbish offshore alternatives which are being seriously taken on board by other large players in the industry such as Excelerate Energy and Exxon Mobil. These companies have understood all too well that their whole industry will suffer if there is even one major accident at an LNG terminal which kills members of the general public.

The only real way this project could be pushed through over the safety concerns faced by the local residents is if the project would be deemed to be in the “national interest”.

We have submitted that the near-depleted gas fields in Kinsale are already in use, and therefore providing a strategic supply of natural gas. We have provided details of alternatives to this site such as Floating Storage Regasification Units, Gravity-Based Systems, gassports and using the LNG delivered to the UK - the British taking the risks while we take the gas. In any case the case for the National Interest put forward by the applicant is less than convincing and has in fact been extremely blurred.

Mr. Inspector, on Friday you asked us to consider conditions we would like to have imposed if this application was to be granted permission.

Throughout this process we raised many concerns and you have a record of all of them. However, we have tried over these last few days to find ways around this issue which would acceptable to all concerned.

There is no way that we can work around the core problem that the very presence of the tanks full of LNG and the knowledge we now all have from Dr. Havens’ submission, constitutes a continual threat to our lives if ever there is a leak. We are expected to live with that for the rest of our lives. The people of Kilcolgan have already proved their willingness to move away from their homes in the interest of the greater good but you cannot expect to fool them twice when it is not clear at all in whose interest this project really is. It is not in the country’s interest that is for sure anyway.

You therefore have a clear choice; give lots of gas and profits to a Multinational company with no loyalty to Ireland or cause certain deaths at a future date if there is an accident. The proposed application is the wrong solution for tomorrow’s energy needs because they go against all government obligations and policies in relation to renewable energy and CO2 reductions.

In any case, these proceedings have left us with more questions than answers. We should not be threatened for the rest of our lives with “the largest Roman Candle in the World” for no good reason and we urge you, Mister Inspector, to reject this planning application in its entirety.

Thank you.