Ocean gas depot tried

Plans were to be announced today for a deepwater terminal in the Atlantic Ocean to receive shipments of liquefied natural gas for the metropolitan area.

Representatives for New York-based Atlantic Sea Island Group Llc said yesterday without specifying a location that the “man-made island” will be “far from population centers and outside vital shipping lanes.” Details were to be announced at a news conference in Long Beach, near where a natural gas pipeline from New Jersey comes ashore.
The proposal will be the second by a venture interested in supplying this region with liquid natural gas, which is imported from abroad in special ships. Advocates say imported gas enables the United States to tap supplies from regions of the world where gas is underused, to help fill this nation’s growing need for gas as U.S. and Canadian natural gas piped overland becomes increasingly expensive.

But the other project, a 1,200-foot-long terminal in Long Island Sound halfway between Wading River and New Haven, Conn., proposed by Broadwater Energy of Houston, has drawn strong criticism from environmentalists and some politicians on both sides of the sound as a potential eyesore, navigational hazard and environmental and security risk. Broadwater is planning next week to file its formal application to the various federal and state agencies that must approve its plan. It hopes to have final approval sometime next year and its terminal operating by 2010.

Newsday