Our Communities, LNG, and SpaceX Do Not Make Good Neighbors

By: Rebekah Hinojosa

The thought of large explosives in close proximity to even larger vats of accelerant, like natural gas, would trouble anyone who isn’t a pyromaniac or a fool. The residents of the Rio Grande Valley are neither and so are troubled at the dangerous facilities being planned in their community. SpaceX, a private space exploration corporation, is building its latest launch site in Brownsville, Texas, a mere stone throw away from proposed export terminals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) a highly flammable substance. For the Laguna Madre communities that live within the 6 mile radius of the two facilities, ‘too close for comfort’ only scratches the surface of their opposition to the two projects.

Community members with Save RGV from LNG and the Sierra Club groups have already flooded regulatory agencies with hundreds of comments regarding the safety hazards of how eight massive storage tanks containing highly flammable natural gas have no place near rockets that are frequently blasting off. To make matters worse, both LNG and SpaceX have a history of blowouts and explosions that have injured workers and have forced community evacuations. One LNG explosion, in Plymouth, Washington, happened after shrapnel ruptured a LNG storage tank, causing a leak that turned into a flammable vapor cloud. All residents within a 2-mile radius had to be evacuated. Another explosion at an LNG terminal in Algeria killed 26 people, injured 75, and destroyed several buildings. This is the last thing we need in our quiet beach communities.

Ed McBride, a Long Island Village resident and retired Fire Chief, feels that LNG and SpaceX can’t possibly make good neighbors. “Long Island Village is just over a mile from the proposed Texas LNG site and would be in the LNG export terminal’s safety evacuation zone. I am a retired fire captain and I know our local volunteer fire departments are not equipped to handle LNG blowouts or explosions, we can only evacuate residents. Why are they forcing our communities to live near industrial fossil fuel facilities with overlapping hazard zones and the possibility of a massive explosion from SpaceX’s rockets? All of our communities are opposed to LNG, we don’t want this.”

The Laguna Madre communities have all taken a stand against LNG. They have passed city resolutions that oppose LNG and filed hundreds, if not hundreds, of interventions on the permits., An LNG safety expert, Dr. Jerry Havens, urges a 3-mile buffer between LNG export terminals and population centers. All of the  Laguna Madre communities would be located in the LNG 3-mile hazard zone: Port Isabel, Laguna Heights, Long Island Village, and Laguna Vista, where more than 10,000 people live, including children, teachers, and community leaders at all of the Port Isabel ISD schools.

Forcing these residents to live each day near LNG terminals that they do not want  is unreasonable.  Adding to this a potentially explosive launch site that could also put their lives in danger-- is appalling. It is the duty of all Valley residents to keep the pressure on at public meetings held by regulatory agencies, with online comments, and by educating their fellow community members. It is the duty of the federal energy regulatory commission (FERC) to listen to those concerns and to deny the permits of any facilities that cannot prove common sense safety standards.

As long as LNG is not a done deal, we still have opportunities to weigh in our concerns and/or opposition in the regulatory process. For updates on the status of the company permits visit the savergvfromlng.com website.