NJ governor may kill LNG plan for Rockaway

From the Queens Courier:

Plans to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on a 60-acre man-made island off the Rockaway shore have run aground, with published reports saying that New Jersey Governor-elect Chris Christie will veto the project.

Safe Harbor Energy, the planned deepwater port island, was proposed to be about 13 miles south of Long Beach, and 19 miles east of Highlands, NJ. Geographically, it would appear to be directly off the Rockaway shore.

The planned island would have a harbor for two LNG tankers, each more than 1,000 feet long, storage tanks to hold more than 19 million cubic feet of gas and pump it to shore through two 36-inch diameter pipelines.

Christie, who defeated incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine in the November elections, has been on record as being against the project, viewing it as a threat to New Jersey’s coastal commercial and sporting economy, according to spokesperson Maria Comella. “The governor-elect’s position on LNGs has not changed,” she said.

The company proposing the facility, Atlantic Sea Island Group, initially tried to eliminate New Jersey from the process, but was overruled by Commissioner Sean Connaughton of the Federal Maritime Commission. New York Governor David Paterson has not revealed his views on the project.

New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) had already determined that the proposed port and sub-sea pipeline may result in significant adverse environmental impacts and that compliance with state law requires preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement.