FALL RIVER, Mass. - A new Department of Transportation ruling requires Weaver’s Cove Energy to recalculate how far a possibly flammable cloud of escaped gas might travel.
The opinion, requested from the DOT by the city of Fall River, also states that the full length of a gas pipeline the company wants to build will be under DOT regulation.
Weaver’s Cove is planning to build an offshore berth just south of the Braga Bridge. Liquefied natural gas from tanker ships would be unloaded there and piped four miles up the Taunton River to the proposed tank site at Weaver’s Cove.
“The city asked for this ruling in November of 2009,” said Fall River Corporation Counsel Steven Torres. “I’m very pleased. This is a great way to start the year.
“The DOT has now said that all of the project is subject to their siting regulations and that any exclusion zones will run the whole length of the pipeline, including where it comes on shore,” Torres said.
“They were using disproven science to calculate thermal dispersion,” said Michael Miozza, vice president of anti-LNG organization The Coalition for the Responsible Siting of LNG. “They’re trying to misrepresent how far that cloud will travel.
The statement from the DOT said Weaver’s Cove Energy’s method for calculating how far a gas cloud would travel are “impracticable” and requires the company to come up with new method of calculating, though the DOT does not specify a proper method.
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