Stop LNG

LNG Free

2007-10-21T20:33:00.000-07:00

Press Conference objecting to The Clearwater Port LNG proposal off the coast of Ventura.

Response to editorial in the Ventrua County Star

2007-03-28T09:05:00.000-07:00

Re: Jere Robings’ March 23 letter, “LNG today’s nuclear power”:

Excellent idea! Let's link liquefied natural gas and nuclear power together. While we're at it, why not site them together? Put the terminals off the coast of Diablo Canyon and San Onofre. They are both in remote areas of the state. If there are people living too close, we could buy their property and move them to a safer area. We did the same thing when we built the interstate highway system.

There could be a power plant that runs on LNG directly that could share the electrical grid already in place. There would be no need for a regasification terminal off the coast that pours more than 200 tons of air pollution onto shore and has more than 20 negative impacts to our coast that can't be mitigated. They could even share the same security measures.

Now all we have to do is figure out what to do with the nuclear waste that has accumulated at these sites. I suggest we put it in Thousand Oaks.

Oh, the 1970s. Didn't something happen at a place called Three-Mile Island?

A Blunder From The Land Down Under

2007-03-27T09:25:00.000-07:00

Keep The Coast LNG Free

2007-02-25T21:06:00.001-08:00


PSA asking all concerned citizens to wrtie the California Coastal Comission and ask them to kill the BHP Billiton off shore LNG facility off Oxnard and Malibu California. go to www.coastaladvocates.com

Gore-Nader 2008

2007-02-14T10:45:00.000-08:00

Ralph Nader
PO Box 19362
Washington, D.C. 20036

February 10, 2007

Dear Ralph,

I just saw “An Unreasonable Man” at the 4:30 showing in Los Angeles. I was the guy who spoke about LNG terminals off the coast of Oxnard and Malibu. Not many in the audience knew what I was talking about. There has been a concerted effort to downplay this subject in the LA market. If ever there were an issue that had Ralph Nader’s name on it, it would be this one. Government corruption, lack of oversight, bribery by foreign owned multinational corporations, hypocrisy from leading environmentalists and phony studies from the fossil fuel industry all add up to a subversion of our rights as American citizens. Everything you taught me to look out for is occurring in our community right now. I am not alone in this fight, but we need reinforcements. There are critical meetings happening in the near future that we need people to attend. Could you help us put the word out?

I have enclosed my writings, links to organizations fighting this intrusion and a short documentary called “Sand Sun Oil Gas” that I worked on with Janet Bridgers of Earth
Alert. Please give my thanks to the filmmakers for creating a moving documentary that chronicles the life of a true American hero.

Whatever you choose to do politically, I support, but if I might indulge myself for a moment, What if Al Gore and Ralph Nader put aside their differences, joined forces and became the Gore-Nader ticket in 2008? The fight to stop global warming is more important than any one party, person or government. It is time for a New Deal for the New Century.

Lt Governor Please Help

2007-02-14T10:43:00.000-08:00

Lt. Governor John Garamendi
State Capital Room 1114
Sacramento CA 95814

Dear Sir,

I just dropped my daughter off at Hollywood Beach Elementary School. As I drove up Harbor Blvd, I was reminded of what is going on less than a mile from my beach area home. There is land clearing going on at a toxic oil dump at 5th and Wooley Rd. There, PCBs, arsenic, lead and waste oil products are being stripped from the land. The smell of oil permeates the air. The street is brown from the trucks going in and out. A street sweeper follows a circuit back and forth helping to spread the contaminants further. There are plans to build 350 homes there. Across the street from this development, California Edison plans to build a gas fired peaker plant. Our city has known about this project since September, only now do the citizens find out about it. In addition there is construction started on a natural gas sweetening plant in the same location. The debris of over 100 years of oil industry abuse pock the beaches and fields just down the road from me.

On top of all this, the Governor has greased the way for a foreign owned multinational corporation to build a Rube Goldberg style floating factory off our coast. It was probably designed on a cocktail napkin. BHP Billiton will do anything to get in on the LNG gold rush. As this contraption is designed, it cannot use the best available technology to reduce pollution so the company has lobbied Washington to have the EPA reverse itself and allow Billiton to become Ventura Counties largest air polluter. All this so the fossil fuel industry can find a new way to keep us addicted to their products. Loretta Lynch, former chair of the California Public Utilities Commission has evidence that there is no gas supply shortage in our state. The shortage is based on a bogus study done by Sempra Energy. Sempra fired Cal State Riverside when they found there was a problem with hot gas. They didn’t want them to pursue that line of research.

This contraption will produce sound pressure levels of 192db. That is far beyond the threshold of permanent ear damage. This noise will be underwater where it will endanger the whales and other sea life that travel through the Santa Barbara Channel. Whale stranding has been attributed to high intensity noise. We will have huge LNG supertankers, marauding through our shipping lanes with cargos of 2.5 Billion cubic feet of gas aboard, floating bombs with a power many more times what was dropped on Hiroshima. Then there’s the dubious security issue. There will be automatic gattling guns and who knows what else guarding it creating an armed death island just off our coast. Aren’t we at war? Most of the world hates our guts. Why, because we have become arrogant. What we do in the third world has come home to fester in Oxnard. How can our governor put the lives of the people in such jeopardy? He can if he doesn’t value the lives of the people living here. I guess the people of Oxnard are too “hot blooded”.

Two weeks ago, the Ventura freeway was closed down by a natural gas pipeline damaged by a construction crew. My three year olds day care center was right there. Over 100 children and their caretakers cowered in their building with the smell of gas permeating the air. Fortunately, it didn’t explode. It was only a 4 inch low pressure pipeline; no big deal said the gas company. Billitons 36 inch high pressure line will cross the street right in the same area. I suppose if a construction crew punctures that one, it would be no big deal too.

Last summer SB 426 was killed in a back room deal thanks to Fabian Nunez and his pandering to the labor unions down in Oxnard. They wanted to get jobs building the plant proposed in LA Harbor. SB 426 would have put the evaluation of these projects in the hands of the people not lobbyists and cronies of the governor. Long Beach has opted to kill their project. Now, without SB 426, there is no balance to be found in Sacramento. Communities along our coastline are forced to compete with the fossil fuel industries unlimited deep pockets .They pay off our local organizations, spend millions subverting our politicians and will tell any lie to achieve their goals. This is all in line with the intentional lack of oversight coming from Washington.

Your experience dealing with the insurance industry equips you with the tools needed to evaluate the dangers inherent in this project. I have some tools for you to use also. I have enclosed a documentary video entitled Sand Sun Oil Gas. It is a history of the oil and gas Industry in the Santa Barbara channel since the turn of the century. I have established a channel on You Tube.com http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=6790BD162AA51143 that has short videos covering the route of the pipeline, Loretta Lynches lecture called “The Case Against LNG” and several other videos from as far away as Wales.

My Italian grandfather used to say about Mussolini’s Italy, “The trains run on time, but Democracy doesn’t.” I hope you can put Democracy back on track for the people of California.

Kennedy Hypocrisy

2007-02-14T10:40:00.000-08:00

I thought that Robert Kennedy, being an environmental attorney and anti-fascist would understand the plea of a community vastly outnumbered by a multi-billion dollar company, the Bush/Schwarznegger Administrations and the fossil fuel industry. Robert has been slugging away at Exxon/Mobil, the reincarnation of the Standard Oil trust broken up at the beginning of the 20th century. The tide is turning toward finding an end to our fossil fuel dependence in our country. Even George Bush admits that we are addicted to oil.

Now Robert has come to support, Mati Waiya’s “courageous” support of BHP Billiton’s off shore LNG project. Mati’s support is a reversal of his position on past LNG projects in our community. I would feel more comfortable with his courage if he had not received money and support for his organization from BHP Billiton. LNG is the fossil fuel industries version of light cigarettes. It is just as lethal and just as addictive as the regular brand. Robert speaks of LNG as a bridge fuel. That same rhetoric has been used for years to stall the conversion of our country to renewable energy. Why? Because sunlight is free!

Loretta Lynch, former chair of the California Public Utilities commission, sites evidence that contrary to claims by the fossil fuel industry, there is no shortage of natural gas in our state. As a matter of fact, demand has declined. She can show that through conservation, re-fitting of old technology gas plants and getting serious about renewable energy, we won’t need to import LNG. What glad tidings. Members of her organization have approached Ralph Cavanaugh, Kennedy’s energy director for the National Resources Defense Council, to convey this message. Cavanaugh will not meet with them. Why would a kindred organization dedicated to stopping global warming staffed by sincere and dedicated people be silenced?

On Friday I went to see Al Gore speak at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. He had just been nominated for a Nobel peace prize as well an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth. The message of his film is clear. We face a planetary emergency. The time to end fossil fuel use is now. It is time for a first world solution, not more fossil fuel delusions.

And Another Thing Arnold…

2006-12-16T21:10:00.000-08:00

On November 14th The Ventura County Air Quality Control Board unanimously voted to hold the Cabrillo Port LNG proposal to the air quality standards of our County. No longer will they be able to ignore the rules and pollute our air. Thank you to our fellow citizens on the board. As you would expect, the president of this foreign owned multinational corporation, Renee Klimczak, thinks that the ruling is irrelevant. Like all sociopaths, they insist that they are above our laws.

If air quality doesn’t concern you, maybe giving this company a monopoly will. We’ll have Enron style market manipulation on our hands if we let these criminal types have their way. A special prosecutor in Australia has charged That BHP Billiton conspired to sell Saddam Hussein Australian Wheat in 1996 bypassing American trade sanctions so they could get their hands on Iraqi oil and gas rights. Are these the kind of people we want to control the energy supply to our country? They could park their tankers off our coast and refuse to unload until the price was right. India was led to believe that LNG would be a good source of cheap energy for their country. They are not building any more LNG plants and looking at coal all because the price of LNG is being jacked up by these greedy pigs.

It is time for reelected Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, to stand by his campaign promises to reduce greenhouse gasses and veto this ridiculous offshore experiment. He can afford to give back the hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions he received from them. If not, I suggest he take on a new movie persona.
Arnold Schwarzenegger as “The Bloviator”.

Since their own people in Australia don’t want LNG around either, I suggest that BHP Billiton find another way to sell their gas. I propose that instead of exporting LNG here they take the 800 million from Cabrillo port and use it to settle immigrants in their own country. There are over 300 million people in the United States with more on the way all the time. Why not take a few million off our hands? After all Australia has a whole continent to fill up. BHP will gain customers for their gas and we will avoid LNG completely. In the process, we save ourselves from 25 million tons of greenhouse gasses generated by their filthy fossil fuel project. We can even lend them a ship. I don’t think the Queen Mary is doing much these days and since immigrants don’t receive the respect here that they deserve, why not throw in the statue of liberty to boot? Now I call that a good deal. Much better than this blunder from the land down under.

If you go to http://stoplng.blogspot.com/ you will find links to sources for my previous post, “Wait A Minute Arnold”. Some people asked for sources, there they are. I have established a channel at Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6790BD162AA51143 It has a 4 part presentation from Loretta Lynch, former member of the California Public Utilities Commission entitled “The Case Against LNG”. In this lecture, Loretta takes “head on” the assertion that we are running out of natural gas. She is a breath of fresh air in a land of smog compared to the current members of the CPUC who under the leadership of President Michael Peevey, voted to do the bidding of the LNG lobby.

In addition, The OceanChannel.com has a great post about electricity generated from ocean waves called “Mining Wave Power.” http://www.ocean.com/resource.asp?locationid=1&resourceid=6484&ProdId=2873&CatId=1&TabID=&SubTabID=. This story will give you hope that we can solve our energy problems without destroying our economy.

Now is a time to make smart decisions based on legitimate information. It is not a time to allow our government to be manipulated by the fossil fuel industry. Global warming is a scientific fact. We have to change our ways. Let’s be remembered as a smart generation, and not let our children become the last generation.

Wait A Minute Arnold...

2006-12-03T11:15:00.000-08:00

The election is over and everyone is cheering the Democrats taking the House and the Senate. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been elected governor of California by a 15 point margin. Everyone is talking about Arnold’s move to the center, his rejection of right wing issues and his embrace of the Democrats in the state legislature. Arnold is a Centrist. Everything is hunky dory, everything except the fact that this governor is up to his ears in debt to the LNG industry. They have helped fund his campaign. Attorneys working for BHP Billiton, an Australian Mining company trying to build an LNG port off the coast of Malibu and Oxnard California, are his campaign consultants. HYPERLINK "http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/qws/ff/arcterm=governor+has+close+ties+to+LNG+industry&Submit=S" He even has the support of key Democrats in the state. SB 426 was a bill introduced to allow for a review process of LNG to determine whether it is even needed in our state. It was killed in a back room deal thanks to Democratic Leader HYPERLINK "http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/county_news/article/0,1375,VCS_226_4961246,00.html" Fabian Nunez. A deal was made with the LNG devil.

So, what is LNG and why should I care? LNG is liquefied natural gas. It is cooled to 260 degrees below zero and loaded on 1000 foot supertankers. A shipment of LNG is equivalent to 20 billion gallons of natural gas. That is one hell of a lot of potential energy. Multiply HYPERLINK "http://timrileylaw.com/LNG_TANKERS.htm" Hiroshima by 25 and you have an idea of how dangerous an explosion of it would be. How would you like one of these tankers in your neighborhood? How about three or more a week for the next 40 years? The opportunity for terrorist attack is tremendous. Why worry about nuclear devices smuggled over the border when you have one of these babies’s sitting there. Go see the movie HYPERLINK "http://syrianamovie.warnerbros.com" Syriana, starring George Clooney, if you want to get a flavor of the potential danger presented here.

In addition, BHP Billiton wants to run a 36 inch pipeline through the fields and streets of the city of Oxnard and the County of Ventura. The pipeline will be filled with re-gasified liquid natural gas, compressed to 1100 pounds of pressure per square inch. That is a huge amount of pressure and a dangerous amount of gas. There are 500,000 volt high tension wires running along the route. There are earth quake faults running all through the area. People live and work there. This route is chosen because they are looking for the cheapest way to get the gas to the main pipeline, almost 15 miles away.

On Saturday, November 12, 2006 a 36 inch gas pipeline HYPERLINK "http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2006/11/12/top_story/01local_11-12-06.txt" exploded in Wyoming killing a heavy equipment operator who hit it with his bulldozer. This tragedy illustrates the dangers inherent in this project. LNG burns hotter than native natural gas. Its molecular structure is also different than our local gas. HYPERLINK "http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hotgas21sep21,1,7927531.story?coll=la-headlines-business&track=crosspromo" House fires on the east coast of the U.S. have been linked to gas from LNG. Southern California Edison is concerned about its effect on their turbines.

California is not the only place where LNG terminals are proposed. There are community groups from Maine to Oregon working to prevent this new intrusion by the fossil fuel industry. The fossil fuel companies all have far reaching business plans. They depend on government officials to smooth the way, get rid of a regulation or stack a panel with friendly faces. The Bush administration HYPERLINK "http://www.malibusurfsidenews.com/archives/08242006.pdf" intervened on BHP Billitons behalf to exempt them from tough environmental controls. They need friends in high places. Friends like members of team HYPERLINK "http://www.pchpress.com/local/lng10-14-06.html" Abramoff. Too bad the American people don’t have any. Where is the American people’s business plan? Don’t look to the Bush/Schwarzenegger administrations.

There was a HYPERLINK "http://www.lngexpress.com/EMW/index.asp" conference that started the day after the election, in San Diego California called ” When East Meets West The unfolding of LNG trade in the Pacific”. It was for all the LNG companies of the Pacific Rim that want to sell LNG to the American market. One of the key lines in their introduction talked about Hurricane Katrina and the fact that gas prices went up three fold. It was touted as a great arbitrage position. San Diego is also the home of HYPERLINK "http://www.sempra.com/companies/companies.htm" Sempra Energy. They are building an LNG terminal in Mexico, just south of the border, where the permitting process is lax. The sole purpose of this terminal is to import LNG into the U.S. market. Sempra also owns the pipelines, the gas company, and the power plants. They are also building a 1600 mile pipeline from the Rockies to Ohio. They could then cut off the existing supply of local natural gas to the west coast and force California to buy LNG from foreign owned fossil fuel conglomerates. Thanks Arnold.

By the way Arnold, since Maria is in the business of making public service announcements about emergency preparedness, see if she can put in something about an LNG terminal explosion. Our firemen know we can’t put out an LNG fire; maybe she can put it out for us.

You don’t have to guess what Dick Cheney was talking to the fossil fuel companies about anymore. It was the conversion of the domestic gas industry into a system where the U.S. is dependent on LNG from around the world. The Bush administration is allowing foreign multinationals to have a monopoly on LNG ports around the country. Only they can use the port. We are dependent on crude oil from the Middle East, now they want to include LNG.

During the election campaign, Phil HYPERLINK "http://www.pchpress.com/local/angelides9-29-06.html" Angeledes, Arnold’s opponent, came down to the coast of Malibu and said he would veto the BHP Billiton project. It got minor play in the media. Arnold came directly across the street to Pepperdine University, home of Ken Star, to sign his much vaunted energy bill. This was done with much fanfare. He ignored questions from the local press. They even went to the effort of HYPERLINK "http://www.pchpress.com/local/ab329-29-06.html" removing a tee shirt from a 5 year old in the audience, which criticized the LNG terminal.

On October 22nd, Actor Pierce Brosnan, surfer Laird Hamilton, Halle Berry, Dick Van Dyke, Cindy Crawford, Ted Danson and a host of Hollywood stars turned out for a paddle out protest at the Malibu Pier. Susan Jordan, from The HYPERLINK "http://www.coastaladvocates.com/index.php" California Coastal Protection Network spoke of “the irony of the governor signing the clean air bill overlooking the very ocean that would be affected by this terminal.” This project will be responsible for 25 million tons of greenhouse gasses per year. This illustrates Arnold’s hypocrisy. How can you sign a bill to reduce greenhouse gasses and give approval for a project that increases greenhouse gasses; unless you HYPERLINK "http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/17/BAG7ULQPOA1.DTL&hw=schwarzenegger+executive+order&sn=003&sc=911" don’t intend to enforce the law.

Hundreds of people turned out for this demonstration including a Polynesian dance troupe from Oxnard California. The dancers drove down in the morning fog to show their support and to entertain the people on the pier. Some of the members of this group live at or near the poverty level. The LA Times choose to refer to a HYPERLINK "http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-surf23oct23,1,5871734.story?ctrack=1&cset=true" tasteless joke from long dead talk show host Johnny Carson about Oxnard in their article. This paper consistently ignores any HYPERLINK "http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=1659" documentation that suggests that we don’t need this source of foreign fossil fuel.

I would like to coin a new four letter word Ffff. For, f___ foreign fossil fuel. Haven’t we been fighting a war in the Middle East for this very same issue? Haven’t the American people said enough is enough? Let’s not let the Bush administration achieve their real goal and yolk the American people to another source of ffff for the next 40 years.

Arnold, the next time you come down to the beach why don’t you come down to Oxnard? It is the home to 192,000 people, mostly Latino. The people here have fought off LNG terminals twice already. We will be happy to take you on one more time. We know that you think Oxnard is a good place to put one. Do you really think that if you say you HYPERLINK "http://www.malibutimes.com/articles/2006/11/01/news/news3.txt" are waiting for the EPA report to decide that we believe you?

The EPA, the environmental pollution agency, has been perverted under the Bush regime. They are illegally trying to use a ruling, intended for the Navy to conduct certain temporary off shore maneuvers, to shoehorn in this LNG project. Under pressure from Washington, the local EPA was overruled. This action reversed stringent air pollution controls for Ventura County and lowered the standard for this project. On Nov 14 there is a meeting of the local air pollution agency to try and stop this invasion of sovereignty by the Bush presidency.

So America, shall we continue to warm the Arctic or should we put an end to the HYPERLINK "http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0122-10.htm" fascist manipulation of our government by the foreign fossil fuel industry? Is your pension worth the price of altering the climate of our world and imperiling the world’s children for generations?

John F Kennedy once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country, I ask Robert Kennedy Jr. to ask his cousin Maria to do for her country and get her husband to put an end to this greedy power grab by the foreign fossil fuel industry.

2006-11-18T15:06:00.000-08:00

Check out my latest video called

The Pipeline

2006-11-18T14:16:00.000-08:00

LNG IS A CATASTROPHE

There once was a carefree place
Near the Port of Hueneme
People surfed and swam
Where the dolphins played
And fished and sailed in the open sea

Then along came some men
From a land down under
Hey there mates, what a place to plunder
Let’s build a liquid gas plant off the coast of wonder
All we need to do is give some money to their governor

So they opened up an office
In a high and mighty tower
They bought off our officials
And took away their power
Our corrupted local paper couldn’t wait for it to flower

So what if some terrorists take a tanker for a ride
And run it into ground at the fairgrounds site
Or ram it with a boat full of dynamite
You know that our fireman have got it right
If the gas explodes, they won’t be able to fight

The citizens of the coast had all agreed
That they didn’t want to roast in LNG
But they wouldn’t have a say, to object was absurd
Cause our constitution rejected being heard
The Federal government had the final word

So when you look out at the sea
You’ll see the tankers full of LNG
Every time you see one sail by
You’ll wonder if it’s time for you to die
Yes, fuel from LNG, is an eminent catastrophe

Copyright 2006 by Michael de Martino