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“Liquified natural gas, in and of itself, is an un-American energy source,” Zipf said. “It’s opposite everything we’re talking about, not only because it’s not from here, but that it’s dirty, it’s more expensive and that it’s going to destroy important ecosystems that we’ve worked very hard to protect.”
The island would be at least 60 acres at the surface and more than 110 acres at the ocean floor, according to the Atlantic Sea Island Group. It would use fill from the Ambrose Channel, placing it near the Cholera Fields fishing area.
According to the company, the facility, named Safe Harbor Energy, will be capable of delivering up to two billion cubic feet of natural gas a day through an underwater pipeline that connects with the mainland.
“The facility will bring to the region a much-needed new reliable supply of clean-burning, cost-effective and globally sourced natural gas,” the company stated on its website, atlanticseaislandgroup.com.
Additionally, it said, “the proposed deepwater port has been located and designed to minimize potential safety, environmental and socioeconomic impacts.”
Safe Harbor Energy anticipates the first shipment of LNG to the facility in 2014. Construction of the proposed port and terminal is expected to take about five and a half years.
Clean Ocean Action is vehemently opposed to the project. New federal data shows that the country does not need to import more LNG going through 2030, according to Zipf. Existing LNG Terminals in Maryland, Georgia and the Gulf of Mexico, all of which serve the New York metropolitan region, are at 10 percent capacity.
“There’s no public interest to allowing these companies to destroy the ocean to bring us a product that we don’t need from foreign countries that don’t like us at an increased cost and increasing climate change,” Zipf said.
The Atlantic Sea Island Group, however, said the project would create jobs and give consumers cheaper energy.
According to Zipf, the project would only create few, temporary domestic jobs — “This is all about foreign jobs,” she said, adding that it’s actually more expensive to use LNG. Americans become addicted to another foreign fossil fuel, they’ll be competing with countries that will pay top price for it, Zipf noted.
The new vision for the country is “a green-energy future and an independent-energy future — one that is focused on imploring Americans to put in energy conservation measures, install renewable energy facilities, like solar energy, and then getting off of the foregin energy that we’re already dependent on, and utilize our domestic sources,” Zipf said.
“This is antithetical to everything. It’s the exact opposite of that agenda and, so, there is no public beneft. There’s only corporate greed.”
Additionally, the sensitive ocean environment is at risk. In 1984, the New York Harbor was the “ocean dumping capital of the world,” according to Zipf. Environmentalists worked hard to restore it, Zipf said. “It’s becoming more and more rich in diversity, you know, we’re hearing whale songs off our shores now, and to turn it over to big industry for foreign fossil fuel ... it’s the opposite of everything that we know now that we need to do to both save ourselves as well as the ocean.”
By placing a man-made island in the middle of the ocean, the Atlantic Sea Island Group will be “smothering a whole ecologically rich area off the coast forever,” Zipf said.
Safe Harbor Energy, dubbed “Insanity Island” by COA, is one of three proposed LNG terminals in the planning stages off the coast of New York and New Jersey: Exxon Mobil’s plan is to build a floating LNG terminal named Blue Ocean Energy about 30 miles off Long Island, and Excalibur is planning “Liberty Natural Gas” for 15 miles off Asbury Park, N.J.
“All three proposals are completely unacceptable,” Zipf said.
