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The efforts to establish a Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) facility in the Eastport, Maine area continues. The corporation engaged in the establishment of the facility is Quoddy Bay LLC (Limited Liability Corporation) of Oklahoma. News of what has been going on has not found its way into media outlets as it had a couple of years ago. The Eastport newspaper, Quoddy Tides continues in depth coverage, but the rest of the rest of the media seems to have dropped it as an issue.
The development of this large industrial facility remains an important issue for residents of the region. Many are not only concerned about their voices being heard, some have expressed concerns about politics and the manipulation of the process. Recently, one group of opponents, the Save Passamaquoddy Bay 3-Nation Alliance, drafted a letter, dated May, 29, 2007, to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. The letter cited the Maine Department of Environmental Protection Rules Concerning the Process of Applications and Other Administrative Matters, which require permit applicants to provide adequate public notice of their intent to submit an application to the DEP. Excerpted from the letter addressed to Mr. Jim Dusch and Ms. Robin Clukey of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection is the following: “The procedures and requirements to provide adequate notice are clearly spelled out in the Rules. In addition, the obvious objective of the requirements is to encourage wide participation so that the public, particularly the public most directly impacted by the activity, will have the opportunity to learn about and comment on the applications in a public forum before they are filed. It is also incumbent upon the applicant to identify the affected landowners and to verify that proper notice has been mailed to them in a timely fashion. We have attached a copy of the DEP Fact Sheet on Public Participation in the Licensing Process (DEPLW0686) that pertains to these matters. The only notice Quoddy Bay LNG provided to the public that can be confirmed are letters mailed to the Selectmen in Perry and the Tribal Councilors in Pleasant Point just days before the meeting was to be held. We talked to many abutting landowners who said they were not notified. None of the landowners we contacted whose property is crossed by the proposed pipeline were notified. No property owners whose property falls within one mile of the delineated proposed project boundary said they received notification in the mail as required. We asked every person attending the meeting on May 23 if they had received a notification in the mail about the meeting. Only two people present, Perry Selectman Jeanne Guisinger and Tribal Councilor Dale Mitchell, indicated they had received letters. The primary newspaper that serves the area for items of local interest, the Quoddy Tides, either did not receive notice of the meeting, or did not receive it in time for publication prior to the meeting. The Calais Advertiser, which also serves part of the community, did not receive notice, either. The only newspaper that Quoddy Bay LNG used for notification purposes is the Bangor Daily News, which has limited circulation in the affected area. In this case, Quoddy Bay LNG only provided notification by placing one small legal notice buried in the back of the newspaper. This falls far short of adequately addressing the requirement for published notification in newspapers serving the area.” The Public Information Meeting is seen as a “critical opportunity for public involvement in key issues of this project, and since the impacts of this project are potentially drastic and extensive” the group insisted that the DEP require that Quoddy Bay LLC reschedule the mandatory public hearing. They also suggested that since many communities over a wide area would be impacted by this project, that each effected community have their own Public Information Meeting. The letter stated that the DEP would be undermining its own regulations were they to accept permit related materials prior to their full compliance with the regulations.h |
