Officials from an energy company and Dundalk residents are accusing each other of construing facts about a proposed liquid natural gas plant at Sparrows Point.
Enlisting the help of an attorney, residents have formed an anti-plant coalition, saying Virginia-based AES Corp. is ignoring the dangers of its planned LNG terminal and an 87-mile pipeline to transport the gas. The plant would be slightly more than one mile from homes, which company officials said is too far to be affected by an explosion.
“In our view, it?s like putting this big gigantic bomb on the peninsula,” said coalition coordinator Sharon Beazley.
Residents also point to past explosions at LNG plants in Algeria and Cleveland and a leak at a plant in Calvert County that killed a man. But AES officials say their worries are unfounded, citing their plans to reinforce tanks with two steel walls and 30 inches of concrete.
Residents also fear the dredging of 2.5 million cubic yards in the Brewerton Channel will disrupt fisheries. Company officials said they have not determined the environmental impacts yet, and haven?t even applied for dredging permits.
But Sparrows Point owner Vincent Barletta received a permit to dredge the same area in May 2005. Residents said they suspect the permit, issued to accommodate larger vessels at Barletta?s ship-repair facility, was really a first step for LNG preparation.
They accused former U.S. Congresswoman Helen Delich Bentley, a longtime advocate for the Port of Baltimore and a current AES “consultant,” of pushing for the permit without residents? input. Bentley says dredging was necessary to keep the shipyard in business.
Bentley declined to read a copy of a federal lawsuit ? furnished by The Examiner ? alleging AES dumped toxic ash on Dominican Republic beaches.
“It does not affect what is going on in Maryland,” Bentley said. “If I were a company who had some crap and I thought it was bad crap, I would take it out in the middle of the ocean and dump it where nobody could find it.”
Barletta did not return phone calls. AES project director Kent Morton said Barletta applied for the dredging permit before he began working with AES. He said Bentley has encouraged outreach to residents throughout the process.
“More than anyone else, Helen Bentley told us to get into the community,” Morton said.
