Mike Smith: The most urgent thing – I think – on the minds of a lot of people in terms of the environment is the LNG situation. What is Re-Earth’s current position on whether or not it will support any of the LNG projects?
Mrs. Sam Duncombe: As you know I have been researching this over the past year and basically the more I learn about the situation, not only in terms of actually installing the gas terminal here and laying the gas pipelines is that we need to be extremely cautious as to which industries we allow in to this country. Because as you know the FTAA is breathing fire down our backs right now, and the reason the FTAA is so important in this particular issue is – Chapter 11 in NAFTA, the sister agreement to the FTAA with Mexico, the United States and Canada – there is a clause in Chapter 11, which basically allows a corporation to sue a government and right now the State of California is being sued for one billion dollars, because a Canadian company was adding a product to gasoline that would make it burn cleaner. ﾠCalifornia found out that that same product was actually causing the water to be carcinogenic, and they made a law that would ban this additive, MTBE from being added into the fuel. ﾠIn return California sued Canada for a billion dollars for profits lost. ﾠThe problem for us with LNG is because the FTAA closed document, which means that it is not open for public scrutiny at all, there is a select group of people who are allowed to look at it apart from government.
Mr. Smith: Fred Mitchell would disagree; he said that there is a civil society group of which the public has access through this civil society group headed by Dr. Keva Bethel and the Chamber of Commerce has participated to some extent and others.
Mrs. Duncombe: Well, I’m happy to know that. ﾠBut basically, if we allow one LNG company in, is there something in the FTAA that would allow other companies to say, ‘well you let AES in’ or ‘you let Tractabel in’, so you have to let us in. So I think it is way beyond whether or not there is going to be environmental damage, which from reading the AES document – the environmental impact assessment for AES, which goes from Ocean Cay, Bimini to Florida. ﾠThere are a number of situations with that particular document that I’m not very comfortable with that we brought to B. E. S. T. ‘s attention and to the Ministry of Health’s attention.
Mr. Smith: Can you give us some examples?
Mrs. Duncome: For example, the pipeline that runs from Ocean Cay to the exclusive economic zone which is midway between the United States and The Bahamas, 40 miles of that pipeline is going to be laid in Bahamian waters. ﾠOf those 40 miles of pipelines only ten miles have been surveyed, so we don’t know what is under the remaining 30 miles of pipeline.
Mr. Smith: Are you saying that the path that they plan to put the pipeline on they’ve only actually looked at under the ocean for ten miles?
Mrs. Duncombe: Right, so how do we know in the additional 30 miles that they are not damaging reefs, or other important areas for the marine life?
Mr. Smith: Why haven’t they looked at it?
Mrs. Duncombe: That is a very good question. ﾠI don’t know why they haven’t looked at it and that is a question that we have asked and we have never been answered. In the terminal itself they are going to be using lots of different chemicals, corrosive, different fuels to power what they are going to be using in the terminal and that is all washed out into the sea with minimal treatment. ﾠSo you have got all these corrosives, gasoline and oils being dumped into the sea.
Mr. Smith: A lot of hot water as well.
Mrs. Dumcombe: Hot water, there is also dredginging that is going on right now around Ocean Cay that the Minister of Health will argue that because AES brought over the mining rights to the Aragonite mining that was going on at Ocean Cay, that they don’t have to do any subsequent EIA for the dredging for their boats etc. ﾠI think that in 25 years since this agreement was first made that it would be in the best interest of The Bahamas for new EIA to be done on what dredging is going on and how it is affecting the surrounding marine life, that has not been done, and dredging is continuing today. ﾠThese are issues that as far as AES is concerned, we need to be concerned about. ﾠIn Freeport – where they want to put the Tractabel plant – in the harbour itself – you have other industries surrounding that, there is Borco, what was Syntex (I don’t remember what it is now), and a number of other industries and also the cruise ships that are coming into Freeport Harbour.
Mr. Smith: I think they were thinking of making an arrangement that if Tractabel went there, they would re-route the cruise ships.
Mrs. Duncombe: That may be so, however, there are still communities very close to where Tractabel is going to put their terminal, and I think this is something that also needs to be looked at. ﾠTractabel boasts that Boston also has a plant – a re-gasification terminal in Boston Harbour, but what they fail to tell us is that the terminal in Boston Harbour was built long before there were any regulations that would guide where such a facility would be placed. ﾠThere are some 25 gas terminals on the board in the United States now, none of which have been approved, my feeling is, after all the research that I have done is that the reason these companies are here is because they are not wanted in the United States. The communities in the United States are telling them no. ﾠThey tell us that these plants don’t explode, well, what exploded in Algeria was not a re-gasification plant, but a liquification plant, and I have been told by industry experts that the difference is not huge. ﾠYou are talking about a gas, so of course, at some level, it is flammable, and it can blow up, so there is a safety issue there, especially for the one in Freeport Harbour, because if that goes depending on how much gas is available at the time it could blow, like a three mile wide radius and would vaporise people and everything else.
Mr. Smith: Obviously, though, B.E.S.T. would be concerned about the welfare of the Bahamian public, and has already made a statement not supporting certain aspects of the LNG plan, but the Minister and his advisors feel that until he gets direct advice from the Ministry of Health, that he is on fairly good grounds.
Mrs. Duncombe: Which Minister is this?
Mr. Smith: Leslie Miller, the Minister of Trade and Industry, who is actually the one who is a significant proponent of the various LNG plans, he feels that all the advice that he has received – except probably from B.E.S.T. itself – doesn’t threaten the Bahamian people that much.
Mrs. Duncombe: The point is however, is that the Tractabel EIA is being looked at by B.E.S.T. right now. ﾠ
What their final conclusions are, we don’t know. We don’t even know what their final conclusions were on the AES project, so there are a number of things going on, the public is basically being shut out of this process, which should be a public process. ﾠBahamians should be allowed to see those documents and to make a determination for themselves. ﾠWe have a lot of smart people around here, we’ve got scientists that are not necessarily in B.E.S.T., who can lend tremendous support one way or the other for this project to proceed or not to proceed. ﾠThat process is not being allowed to happen.
These companies have come here, telling us that they are going to follow U.S. standards – part of the U.S. standards is public input, and the public is allowed to view the EIA, to make comments during certain parts of the project, and finally when the government makes its decision it will have input from a wide spectre of people opposed to just the government looking at it.
Mr. Smith: We have got some problems in this area though, there is currently a Constitutional Commission that is seeking to get public input, there are several other commissions that are seeking to get public input, and the public isn’t responding. ﾠDo you think they will respond if in fact they open up the EIS’s and have town meetings?
Mrs. Duncombe: Well let me put it to you this way: everyone is not going to go and look at that document, and that’s fine, but there are interested people who will go look at that document and make their findings public, and that is what is not happening. ﾠI’ve had the opportunity when AES was available to the public for 20 days to go down to B.E.S.T and look at it.
Mr. Smith: Why the limitation on the days? That’s always been curious to me. ﾠ
Mrs. Duncombe: It’s an issue of control. ﾠFor example, here we are in New Providence, we have access to the EIA and none of the other islands have access to it. ﾠThat is not fair to the rest of the Bahamas.
Mr. Smith: It’s certainly not fair to Bimini.
Mrs. Duncombe: No. ﾠI don’t know whether it was made public to Bimini, but the point is that we should all be able to look at it and put our two cents forward as to what concerns we have about the project or don’t have about the project for that matter, and that is not happening. ﾠIn the PLP’s plan they promised a Freedom of Information Act and in the spirit of that promise, these EIS’s should be open to the public.
Mike Smith, Love 97FM
Contact is aired Mondays at 8:00 p.m. on Love 97.
