Sunday, October 21, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Response to editorial in the Ventrua County Star
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?
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Keep The Coast LNG Free
| 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 | |
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Gore-Nader 2008
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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