Port Dolphin has acquired certification to build its 42-mile-long pipeline from Port Manatee to the future site of its liquefied natural gas port 28 miles off Anna Maria Island in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued a certificate of public necessity and convenience to build and operate the pipeline, the Norwegian-based shipping company announced Monday.

Tankers will dock at the port, convert liquefied natural gas to vapor and feed it into the underwater pipeline, which will come ashore at Port Manatee for distribution to energy suppliers.

Concerns about the pipeline being constructed through submerged beach renourishment sand reserves generated an agreement allowing Manatee County and Longboat Key to remove the sand prior to the construction of the pipeline in June 2012, with Port Dolphin reimbursing Manatee County and Longboat Key up to $5.5 million each.

Local municipalities and environmental groups continue to have concerns about the project, including its potential impacts on wetlands, navigation, fisheries, marine mammals and sea turtles.

The public will have opportunities to express concerns throughout the state environmental permitting process, which will begin after the issuance of the port’s license, anticipated early next year.

The U.S. Maritime Administration and U.S. Coast Guard approved the project last month subject to “conditions designed to protect and advance the national interest, the demonstration of financial capability and conditions to preserve and enhance the environment.”

ANNA MARIA – The U.S. Maritime Administration signed a document on Monday that clears the decks for a license to be issued for Port Dolphin’s liquefied natural gas port, planned 28 miles off Anna Maria.

Port Dolphin officials attended the signing ceremony in Washington, D.C. and have organized a reception at the Bradenton Yacht Club on Nov. 5. to celebrate the watershed event.

The document, called a “record of decision,” codifies the Final Environmental Impact Statement issued by the U.S. Coast Guard, a two-volume study of the expected impacts of the offshore port and its 42-mile-long pipeline to Port Manatee, Port Dolphin spokesman Wayne Hopkins said.

The document drew sharp criticism from environmental groups including ManaSota-88, charging that anticipated environmental impacts of the project on wetlands, navigation, fisheries, marine mammals and sea turtles were understated.

“We filed objections in August and are waiting to hear a response from Port Dolphin,” said ManaSota-88 Director Glenn Compton, adding that the group is entitled to a response as a party in the licensing process.

The town of Longboat Key criticized the project, citing errors in the environmental impact statement and objecting to the proposed underwater pipeline path, which was slated to traverse the Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve, then was relocated to a site where it would have crossed beach renourishment sand reserves, making them inaccessible.

An agreement between Port Dolphin, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission requires Port Dolphin to pay Manatee County and Longboat Key up to $5.5 million each to fund the removal of sand from the pipeline path prior to June 2012, when construction is anticipated.

The state environmental permitting process is next on the Norwegian shipping firm’s agenda, which could take a year, Hopkins said. Operations are expected to begin in 2013.

The submersible port will have two docking stations that can be raised to meet tankers that will convert their cargoes of liquefied gas to vapor and offload it into the pipeline for delivery to Port Manatee for shipment over land to energy suppliers.

Port Dolphin predicts a $150 million direct economic impact to Port Manatee and Manatee County over the next 20 years.

ANNA MARIA – With the Sept. 11 approval of Gov. Charlie Crist, Port Dolphin is one step away from final approval of its liquefied natural gas port, proposed 28 miles off Anna Maria Island in the Gulf of Mexico.

Crist approved the port subject to 13 conditions required by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. An executed agreement between Port Dolphin and the two agencies is required by Friday, Sept. 18, to document the conditions.

The U.S. Maritime Administration is scheduled to make a final decision on the port’s permit application by Oct. 26.

The port would be connected by an underwater pipeline to land-based distribution points at Port Manatee, whose officials have been among the project’s most vocal supporters, citing new, high-paying jobs and clean energy. Port Dolphin has estimated a $150 million direct economic impact to Manatee County and Port Manatee over the next 20 years.

Critics, including the town of Longboat Key, have expressed concern about the project’s potential environmental impacts on beach renourishment sand resources, wetlands, navigation, fisheries, marine mammals and sea turtles.

Sand pact

Under the conditions, Port Dolphin will be required to pay up to $5 million each to Manatee County and the town of Longboat Key to reimburse them for the removal of beach renourishment sand from the pipeline path, and $500,000 each for permitting fees.

The Manatee County Commission endorsed the plan earlier this month before the dollar amount was announced, noting that it would accelerate the next Coquina Beach renourishment project.

If the municipalities do not remove the sand before June 2012, barring a hurricane or other disaster, Port Dolphin can extend the deadline or make reimbursements for the lost sand. Under the plan, Port Dolphin would begin construction after the sand is removed.

“We are reasonably certain this can be accomplished,” Longboat Key Town Manager Bruce St. Denis said.

But even after seeing the draft agreement on Friday, town officials still were not completely satisfied with the plan, and filed 36 pages of comments with the Maritime Administration challenging the U.S. Coast Guard’s Environmental Impact Statement on Port Dolphin as insufficient.

The comments charge that the report’s conclusions that environmental impacts are minor are patently wrong, that the report fails to consider the cumulative impacts on sand resources of the pipeline with the existing Gulfstream Natural Gas pipeline, and that Longboat Key’s proposed alternative pipeline route was ignored.

Other conditions

In his decision, Crist considered “Florida’s energy needs, the need for alternate natural gas supplies, the potential for adverse environmental effects and economic impacts of the proposed port and safety considerations of port operations,” he wrote to the Maritime Administration.

Port Dolphin must comply with environmental conditions including mitigation and monitoring plans and compensatory mitigation resulting from “unavoidable impacts to benthic and upland resources,” and to hard and live bottom habitats in the Gulf.

The Norwegian-based shipping company must reduce air emissions by modifying diesel engines and using low nitrogen oxide burners, catalytic reduction systems and oxidizers on each ship.

It also must limit seawater intake and discharge in the process of converting liquid natural gas to its gaseous form by installing a $9 million closed-loop regasification system and ballast and cooling water management system on each of its ships. The company also will be required to conduct a study assessing the impacts of its water intake on marine fisheries.

Port Dolphin will have to pay $3 million to the Florida Energy Systems Consortium or an alternate entity to fund renewable energy research and development.

It also must reimburse the state for any costs for accidents at the port and must provide training for mariners and jobs for the Maritime Administration’s cadets in its fleet.

A $500,000 contribution to local cultural, recreational and marine educational facilities also is required.

ANNA MARIA – Several mistakes were made in a key environmental impact report on Port Dolphin, including overestimating the amount of available beach renourishment sand off Anna Maria Island.

A 12-page correction of the U.S. Coast Guard’s two-volume Environmental Impact Statement on the deepwater port project lists 10 errors - including some previously raised by Longboat Key officials - that could impact the project’s imminent approval.

Gov. Charlie Crist is scheduled to decide whether or not to support the project by Sept. 11. The U.S. Maritime Administration is scheduled to make a decision on the port’s permit application by Oct. 26.

The port would be built 28 miles off Anna Maria in the Gulf of Mexico. Ships would dock at submersible buoys, converting liquid natural gas to gas and transporting it to Port Manatee through a new 42-mile-long pipeline.

Supporters of Port Dolphin include Port Manatee and other maritime firms and energy firms that cite benefits, including a positive economic impact and meeting a rising demand for a clean, alternative energy source.

Critics, including environmental protection group ManaSota-88, express concern about the project’s potential environmental impacts on navigation, fisheries, marine mammals, wetlands and beach renourishment sand resources.

Longboat Key digs in

The report, issued last month, lists expected impacts that the pipeline would have on underwater sand reserves used for beach renourishment on Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key.

In the most significant mistake, a "mathematical unit conversion error," according to the correction notice, nine times more clean, white sand was identified as being available off Anna Maria Island for beach renourishment than actually exists.

It’s one of the errors that Longboat Key officials already had pointed out, Town Manager Bruce St. Denis said.

The erroneous report indicates that so much beach-compatible sand exists off Anna Maria that Port Dolphin’s proposed pipeline, which would make surrounding sand unusable, would not have a major impact on renourishment projects, he said, adding that the facts lead to another conclusion.

“There’s not that much sand out there, so it’s an even bigger problem that they want to lay a pipeline,” he said.

The town commission was scheduled to meet in a closed session with the town attorney last week to discuss litigation strategies, including the possibility of appealing if Port Dolphin’s permit is approved.

Department support

In a comment filed on Friday, the U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service (MMS) recommended that permitting authorities ensure that Port Dolphin’s impact on sand resources “be addressed to the satisfaction of” Longboat Key and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection before submitting a right-of-way application for the pipeline to MMS.

Longboat officials’ concern about the pipeline’s impact on sand resources 11 to 13 miles off Anna Maria in an area known as F-2 is supported by Coastal Planning and Engineering (CPE), the beach consultant for the town and Manatee County, wrote Jarvis Abbot, petroleum engineer for MMS.

Area F-2 could supply sand for Longboat Key’s future beach renourishments, while the town’s current sand source only has enough sand left for one renourishment project, he wrote, stressing the importance of preserving area F-2.

Port Dolphin’s preferred pipeline route should be altered to bypass area F-2, or dropped entirely for another route, he concluded.

Port Dolphin did not respond to a request seeking comment.

Because of the errors in the Environmental Impact Statement, the U.S. Maritime Administration has extended the public comment period to Sept. 11 to allow interested parties time to review the changes and file new comments. To comment, go to www.regulations.gov, click on “Submit a Comment” and enter “2007-28532” or “Port Dolphin” as the keyword.

August 27 is the last day to weigh in on Port Dolphin.

The U.S. Coast Guard, one of several agencies considering approval of the port, published an environmental impact statement last month listing its expected impacts on boaters, marine life and underwater sand reserves used for beach renourishment on Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key.

Comments have been posted and are being accepted at www.regulations.gov regarding the proposed natural gas port, which would be built 28 miles from Anna Maria Island in the Gulf of Mexico, converting liquefied natural gas to gas at submersible buoys offshore and transporting it through a new 42-mile-long pipeline that would come ashore at Port Manatee.

Those in favor

Supporters of the project, including energy and maritime representatives, cite benefits including a positive economic impact and meeting a rising demand for a clean, alternative energy source.

Port Manatee Commerce Center favors the project, writing that “Port Dolphin is the best solution to bring additional natural gas to the southwest coast of Florida while at the same time protecting the area’s natural and living resources. The Port Dolphin project will also create jobs and provide an immediate economic stimulus to Port Manatee and related businesses.”

Associated Industries of Florida, representing employers and businesses, also supports the project, writing, “This deepwater port project will particularly have a major impact on the economy of west central Florida, the maritime community serving Port Manatee and the Port of Tampa, and will supply a much needed new source of clean energy for Florida.”

Other proponents of the project, including state Rep. Ronald Reagan, used the identical language to describe their support.

Sea Sub Systems Inc., a commercial diving business based in Indian Rocks Beach, supports the project because “Many businesses in West Central Florida are struggling in these difficult economic times, and Port Dolphin will provide a real economic boost when we need it,” wrote Operations Director Rob LaMaire. “Port Dolphin will offer employment and benefits during construction and during the life of the project.”

Tampa-based Hellenic Ship Supply also supports the project, citing Port Dolphin’s parent company, Hoegh LNG, as “…among the most efficient, courteous and respectable of ship owners in a long-established relationship developed over more than 15 years,” Alexander Korakis wrote.

Those opposed

Critics express concern about the project’s potential environmental impacts on navigation, fisheries and beach renourishment.

Among those opposed is Joneen Neilsen of Bradenton.

“Florida beaches are worth their weight in gold,” she wrote. “Already they suffer from pollution caused by shipping and toxic substances off Port Manatee. If government would like to create jobs, put solar panels on every house in Florida. That would create jobs and provide plenty of energy. It would be a better use of resources.”

Leslie Swackhamer, a Bradenton native who has spent summers at a family beach cottage on Anna Maria Island all her life, wrote, “The water is clear, the sand white, marine mammals are plentiful, the air is clean. This special island of Anna Maria is a haven for sea turtles and marine mammals - I see manatees and dolphins every day when I am here. Sport fishing is fantastic. That is why people live here and visit. Tourism is the main industry. There are few places of such natural beauty. Any ‘minor’ impact is unacceptable.”

Pete Gross of Holmes Beach questioned the project’s promised financial benefits.

“Nowhere are the specifics detailed – it is all smoke,” he wrote.

In addition, he pointed out that while the company proposed to provide renourishment sand before pipeline construction, “We require a compatible sand source forever, not one time only.”

“I believe that the only people who really stand to benefit from this gas terminal are companies who are only answerable to their stockholders and have little or no stake in the future of their developments other than commercial,” wrote Morgan Rothe of Sarasota.

ManaSota-88 weighs in

Conservation and environmental protection group ManaSota-88 recommends disapproval of the port application.

“Port Dolphin has not adequately demonstrated avoidance or mitigation of the adverse environmental impacts resulting from the project construction and operation,” Director Glenn Compton wrote.

The group anticipates impacts on water quality from construction, pipe laying, cooling water discharges, accidental spills and routine operations, he wrote.

“Unavoidable adverse impacts are expected on threatened and endangered marine mammals, including sea turtles, fish and migratory birds,” Compton wrote, adding that the Coast Guard’s environmental impact statement predicts that 22 acres of the sea floor would not recover.

The port also would impact fishing and the habitats that support marine life, he wrote.

Gov. Charlie Crist is scheduled to make a decision on whether to allow the port to be built by Sept. 11, followed by an Oct. 26 deadline for the U.S. Maritime Administration’s decision.

To comment on the project, go to www.regulations.gov, click on “Submit a Comment” and enter 2007-28532 as the keyword.

PALMETTO – A panel of decision makers heard from supporters and critics of the proposed Port Dolphin natural gas port and pipeline last week at the Manatee Convention Center.

The hearing was part of Port Dolphin’s application process for a license to build a liquid natural gas port 28 miles off Anna Maria Island that would connect to Port Manatee with a 42-mile-long underwater pipeline.

Supporters of the project cited benefits including a positive economic impact on the area, including high-paying jobs, and meeting a rising demand for a clean, alternative energy source. They included spokespeople from Port Dolphin, Port Manatee, Associated Industries of Florida, Seminole Electric, the Tampa Bay Pilots Association and other energy and maritime representatives.

Critics expressed concern about the pipeline making underwater sand resources unavailable for beach renourishment on Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key and the port’s potential environmental impacts, including its effect on fisheries.

Port Dolphin rerouted its proposed pipeline to lessen the impact on underwater sand resources, said Harry Costello, spokesman for the Houston-based company, a subsidiary of a Norwegian shipping firm.

Impact on renourishment

The rerouted pipeline would still prevent significant recovery of sand needed to replenish beaches, said Jennifer Fitzwater, Deputy Secretary for Policy and Planning for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, one of the agencies that will weigh in on the port’s approval.

In addition, she said, the fisheries data used in the U.S. Coast Guard’s Final Environmental Impact Statement on Port Dolphin is inadequate. She also noted calculation errors in the document, a key part of Port Dolphin’s lengthy application process.

Longboat Key Town Manager Bruce St. Denis said the errors result in the document overstating the amount of sand that would be available for beach renourishment if the pipeline is built along Port Dolphin’s proposed route. The document concludes that the pipeline will have a minor impact on sand resources, while town officials believe the impact will be a serious threat to renourishment programs and the tourism-based economy in both the town and Manatee County, he said.

"We only have enough (sand) for half of the next project," he said.

A Coast Guard panelist said the report is being analyzed for errors.

Risk to fisheries

Barbara Hines of Holmes Beach, a board member of environmental group ManaSota-88, said the port would heavily impact fisheries according to the environmental impact statement. She cited a passage saying that some hardbed areas of the Gulf bottom are not expected to rebound after construction.

She urged the panel to seriously consider denying the port application, or at least requiring the port to tie into the existing Gulfstream Natural Gas Systems pipeline that already supplies natural gas to Florida. Port Dolphin officials have previously rejected the suggestion, saying the systems are incompatible.

Port Dolphin’s planned pipeline route is "dangerously close" to the Gulfstream system where it comes ashore at Port Manatee, according to Gulfstream attorney Brian O’Neill, who called the placement an "unacceptable risk."

Port Dolphin would not impact the safe passage of vessels in Tampa Bay, said Allen Thompson, executive director of the Tampa Bay Pilots Association.

Port Manatee Director David McDonald said Port Dolphin is economically viable and will provide a competitive source of clean energy and high-paying jobs at the port.

"The public will be the winners," he said.

Gov. Charlie Crist is scheduled to make a decision on whether to allow the port to be built by Sept. 11, followed by an Oct. 26 deadline for the U.S. Maritime Administration’s decision.

Public input

Public comments on the project must be received by Aug. 24 at either www.regulations.gov (click on Search Dockets; enter 2007-28532; click on Send a Comment), or by regular mail to the Docket Management Facility, U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Ave. S.E., West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, D.C. 20590-0001. Include your name, address and docket number USCG-2007-28532.

LONGBOAT KEY – A key environmental assessment of Port Dolphin’s proposed natural gas port and pipeline contains "serious errors" about the project’s impact on submerged beach renourishment sand resources, according to Longboat Key officials.

The town disputes the U.S. Coast Guard’s Final Environmental Impact Statement on Port Dolphin’s proposed pipeline route, which would make sand off limits that could otherwise be used for beach renourishment on Longboat Key and Anna Maria Island.

The document concludes that the pipeline will have only a minor impact on sand resources, while town officials believe the impact will be so large that beach renourishment programs and the town’s tourism-based economy will be threatened, according to Town Manager Bruce St. Denis.

The document overstates the amount of sand that would be available for beach renourishment if the pipeline is built along Port Dolphin’s proposed route, he said.

"There are serious errors," St. Denis said. "The data is seriously flawed."

For example, Borrow Area IX, the town’s sand source, contains about 800,000 cubic yards of sand, while the document cites between 14 million to 36 million cubic yards, he said, making it appear that more sand is available for beach renourishment than actually exists.

Buffer zones around the pipeline cited in the document are 2.5 to five times smaller than required by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and recommended by the U.S. Minerals Management Service, while actual buffers would make more sand off limits for renourishment, he said.

The document also includes a 538,000 acre area as a "mapped sand resource" that has not been confirmed to contain sand, he said, adding that another citation erroneously inflating the amount of available sand appears to be the result of a miscalculation.

A miscalculation did occur in converting acres to square feet and cubic yards, said Mark Prescott, chief of the Deepwater Ports Standards division of the U.S. Coast Guard, which produced the report. The agency is analyzing the report and plans to advise state regulators, including the governor and DEP, of any errors, and possibly publish a supplement to the report if necessary, he said.

St. Denis also has asked U.S. Congressman Vern Buchanan and U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to investigate before a Tuesday, July 28 public hearing on the proposed project at the Manatee Convention Center.

Port Dolphin has consistently used figures supplied by Coastal Planning and Engineering, which is Longboat Key and Manatee County’s consultant for beach renourishment, in its reports, according to Port Dolphin spokesman Wayne Hopkins.

A public hearing on the proposed Port Dolphin natural gas port and pipeline is scheduled for Tuesday, July 28, at the Manatee Convention Center in Palmetto.

The hearing, from 5 to 7 p.m., will be preceded by an informational open house from 3 to 4:30 p.m. about the project, a submersible liquid natural gas port 28 miles off Anna Maria Island that would connect to Port Manatee with a 42-mile-long underwater pipeline.

Comments from the public will be accepted during both sessions.

For those unable to attend, comments must be received by Aug. 24 at either www.regulations.gov (click on Search Dockets, enter 2007-28532, click on Send a Comment), or by regular mail to the Docket Management Facility, U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Ave. S.E., West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, D.C. 20590-0001. Include your name, address and docket number USCG-2007-28532.

Commercial fishermen banned from 26 square miles of Gulf waters for nearly a year. Sea turtles suffocated in machinery, and manatees and dolphins killed in vessel strikes. Air, water, noise and visual pollution increased.

These are among the many concerns raised by the U.S. Maritime Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard in their final environmental assessment of the proposed Port Dolphin natural gas port and pipeline, released Friday.

The Houston-based company, a subsidiary of a Norwegian enterprise, is applying to build a submersible liquid natural gas port 28 miles off Anna Maria Island that would connect to Port Manatee with a 42-mile-long underwater pipeline.

Two permanently moored submersible buoys three miles apart would moor vessels that would connect onshore with Gulfstream Natural Gas System and Tampa Electric Co. pipelines.

Written by consultant Engineering-Environmental Management Inc., the document, a revision of a previous assessment, notes a growing need for natural gas to increase energy diversity, and acknowledges that Port Dolphin’s remote sources of natural gas would be important to Florida in the event that a hurricane damaged natural gas sources in the Gulf of Mexico.

However, it also raised dozens of environmental concerns, including the following:

Biological resources

Increased shipping traffic would cause an unquantifiable increase in collisions with dolphins and manatees, the report states, adding, "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has consistently upheld that the take of a single Florida manatee would jeopardize the continued existence of the species, and vessel collisions have been identified as a major source of mortality for this species."

Dolphins, manatees and sea turtles also would be impacted by construction noise, and coastal and marine bird nesting and foraging areas could be affected.

Marine organisms could be entrapped by the closed-loop vaporization system proposed by Port Dolphin, including up to .03 percent of commercially caught gag grouper.

About 3,000 acres of hard-bottom habitat could be disturbed by construction, with 234 acres of benthic plant and animal communities impacted, 66 acres permanently lost and 22 acres affected by operations near Port Manatee that would not recover.

Socioeconomic resources

While the port would have beneficial impacts, including increased employment and local economic stimulus, it also could have an adverse impact on low income populations, including those who fish to eat.

During operations, safety zones around the port and the pipeline would cause minor, long-term adverse impacts on commercial fishing, and "Commercial fishing would be temporarily excluded from the vicinity of construction activities (26 of approximately 400 square miles of Tampa Bay) for approximately 11 months during construction."

Still, the report states, "No major reduction in populations of the commercially and recreationally important species available to the fishing industries is anticipated. Therefore, measurable secondary economic impacts, such as reduced employment in fishing or fishing-related industries, also are not anticipated."

Geological resources

Port Dolphin’s proposed pipeline route is its third attempt to avoid environmental impacts; the first proposal impacted Terra Ceia Bay Aquatic Preserve and the second impacted sand resources in the Gulf used for beach renourishment.

The report states that an offshore interconnection with the existing Gulfstream pipeline would cause fewer environmental impacts than the company’s most recent preferred pipeline route, a suggestion long favored by Longboat Key officials.

While the third proposed route minimizes the impact on sand resources, the report indicates that direct impacts are expected in up to 1 percent of the potential available underwater sand and 50 acres of onshore land.

Water resources

Both offshore and coastal water quality would be impacted by Port Dolphin, including sedimentation that could last for hours or days. Near Port Manatee, where the pipeline would come ashore, construction could modify groundwater flow and cause hazardous substance spills affecting water quality.

Air quality

Construction equipment and port operations would cause air pollution within 93 miles of Everglades National Park and 186 miles of Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge.

Recreation and aesthetics

A safety zone around the pipeline would cause minor, long-term adverse impacts on recreational fishing and boating. Offshore construction of the port would be visible to boaters, residents and tourists.

Noise

Pile driving could result in major impacts on marine resources and increased vessel traffic would generate noise that could be heard onshore.

Other impacts are listed for cultural resources, or currently unknown underwater property eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places, greenhouse gas emissions totaling less than 1 percent of the existing emissions for Florida, and navigation and transportation, with 1,800 trips to and from shore anticipated during the 11-month construction period, and three to six trips a day during operations.

If Port Dolphin is approved, operations are scheduled to begin in 2011. The maritime administration or a governor of an adjacent state could disapprove the project, the report states, adding that subsequent port applications could have greater impacts in comparison to Port Dolphin.

Public comments are invited on the environmental analysis, and must be received by Aug. 24 at either www.regulations.gov (click on "Search Dockets;" enter 2007-28532; click on "send a comment"), or by regular mail to the Docket Management Facility, U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Ave. S.E., West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, D.C. 20590-0001. Include your name, address and docket number USCG-2007-28532.

BRADENTON – After months of finger pointing, officials from Port Dolphin and Longboat Key agreed last week to meet with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on where to install a proposed underwater natural gas pipeline.

Port Dolphin has applied for a U.S. Coast Guard permit to build a floating liquid natural gas port 28 miles off Anna Maria Island, where tankers would convert liquefied natural gas into vaporized natural gas and pump it to Port Manatee to supply electric companies.

Longboat Key officials are concerned that the company’s preferred pipeline route off the north end of Anna Maria Island could jeopardize high quality beach renourishment sand deposits used on Longboat Key and Anna Maria Island beaches, and destroy environmentally sensitive underwater habitat. They propose a different route that Port Dolphin finds objectionable.

Manatee County Commissioner Joe McClash asked the parties to agree to a meeting after hearing both sides dispute the other’s contentions at a commission workshop last week.

Both the county and the town have expressed support for the project, which would have a significant economic impact on Port Manatee, but both have reservations about the location of the pipeline.

"We are all in agreement I believe on two things," said Charlie Hunsicker, director of Manatee County’s Natural Resources Department - opportunities to bring natural gas ashore at Port Manatee, and that "the best pipeline route is one which avoids as much clean, white sand as possible."

Longboat Key prefers a route to the north of known and potential sand deposits that could be used for future beach renourishment projects for both the town and the county.

Port Dolphin said that when Gulfstream Natural Gas Systems requested approval in 2001 of a pipeline route similar to Longboat’s preferred route, DEP refused, saying the route contained environmentally sensitive areas.

"We have known from the beginning that this area contains large amounts of hard bottom with sensitive habitats," said Kristoffer Evju, assistant project manager for Port Dolphin. "Such an area will not be approved by DEP."

"We don’t know if that’s true" without current studies of the area, said Rick Spadoni, of Manatee County’s consulting firm, Coastal Planning and Engineering. Surveys and maps are subject to change because the sea floor changes, he said, and even current data is subject to interpretation and depends on the specific criteria that engineers are given to work with.

But if it is true that Longboat’s preferred route goes through sensitive hard bottom areas, Port Dolphin could possibly wind its pipeline around those areas, he said.

"The only thing we know for sure is that there are hills containing beach compatible sand off Anna Maria Island, and that Longboat Key’s preferred pipeline route does not contain those sand hill features," Spadoni said.

Port Dolphin’s most recent alternative pipeline route has the least impact on the sand deposits identified by Coastal, Port Dolphin Project Manager German Castro said.

It is the third route the company has offered for consideration in response to concerns from state and local officials.

In a June 2008 report, DEP wrote the U.S. Coast Guard that: "The (DEP) Bureau of Beaches and Coastal Systems has grave concerns that the Port Dolphin LNG Deepwater Port and its proposed pipeline alignment will eliminate from future use large quantities of beach compatible sand needed for regional sediment management in the southwest Gulf coast region of Florida… We would prefer that the pipeline follow the existing Gulfstream pipeline alignment to minimize the impact of increasing multiple uses of the nearshore waters."

The newest round of documents in the permitting process began circulating last month, headed by a report from Jacksonville-based Taylor Engineering, hired by Port Dolphin as an independent consultant to assess sand quality around its preferred route.

Longboat Key Town Manager Bruce St. Denis disputed both the report and its independence, saying that it omitted an area called "F2" that potentially contains a large quantity of usable sand, which Longboat’s preferred route would avoid.

He suggested stopping the clock on the permitting process until the issue is resolved.

Rerouting the pipeline already has cost Port Dolphin millions of dollars, Evju said, and the company hopes to avoid another delay in the permitting process, including a draft revision of the Coast Guard’s Environmental Impact Statement, which examines possible detrimental effects of the pipeline.

The final statement should be issued soon, predicted Assistant County Attorney Sarah Schenk, who said she was hesitant to advise county commissioners to oppose the pipeline because they also sit as the Manatee Port Authority.

The county estimates a potential $20 million in operating revenues for the port over the duration of the Port Dolphin project.

"It’s a legal process, and it’s political as well," she said.

BRADENTON BEACH – Reacting to a request for support from Longboat Key, the city will send a letter to Congressman Vern Buchanan protesting Port Dolphin’s proposed pipeline route that would threaten a potential sand source for renourishment.

Faced with a long report on the project, the city commissioners voted last Thursday, June 4, to send a non-specific letter to Congressman Vern Buchannan asking him to look into the situation.

Longboat Key City Manager Bruce St. Denis asked the commissioners for help at their May 21 meeting and they agreed to address it last week after it appeared on an agenda.

Mayor Michael Pierce said he wasn’t sure if they should act because the pipeline route had not been approved, but City Attorney Ricinda Perry said they should act.

"What they’re (Port Dolphin) looking for is approval of the project and then they will deal with impacts as they come up," she said. "They’re putting the cart before the horse."

Perry said there was some mistrust of Port Dolphin.

"They said the project would bring us money and jobs, but when we sat down with them, they could not pinpoint what the jobs would be," she said. "The jobs would come during the construction, not afterward."

Perry said that since the city commission is relatively uninformed about the specifics of the project, the city should write its own general letter of opposition instead of signing off on Longboat Key’s letter.

The commission voted unanimously to have Perry draft the letter to Buchannan with copies to the Island cities and Longboat Key.

Holmes Beach and Anna Maria commissioners agreed to support a request by Longboat Key officials to move the location of the Port Dolphin pipeline so it doesn’t affect the town’s possible sand source for renourishment projects.

"Longboat Key does not oppose the project, but wants to protect its sand sources," Longboat Key Town Manager Bruce St. Denis explained to Holmes Beach commissioners at their May 26 meeting.

After pressure from Manatee County and Island officials, Port Dolphin officials changed the original underwater natural gas pipeline route to avoid existing borrow pits used by the county and Longboat Key. However, two other borrow areas under investigation by Longboat Key would be bisected by the pipeline.

"The town’s position is that this whole area should be avoided," St. Denis continued. "It appears that there’s enough sand for us to do four projects, which would take us out 25 years or so. We anticipate there’s 2.9 million cubic yards of sand."

He said the town has asked Port Dolphin officials to study the possibility of relocating the pipeline through an area of sand north of the areas under investigation that does not appear to contain beach compatible sand.

Holmes Beach

Commissioner David Zaccagnino asked the value of the sand. St. Denis said the 2.9 million cubic yards is worth $45 million.

"The Marine Administration and the Coast Guard are ready to issue a final environmental impact statement, which says they’re probably not going to listen to our arguments," St. Denis said.

"We think it’s important now for the local communities to go on the record in our support. We think the project is a good project, but stay out of the sand."

City Attorney Patricia Petruff pointed out that the draft letter submitted by St. Denis "presupposes a lot of information that we’re not privy to, a lot of facts that the city of Holmes Beach may not have knowledge about. I think the mayor should pare it down a little bit."

Zaccagnino asked that a sentence stating that the city supports the project also be removed.

Anna Maria

St. Dennis went over the same information at the Anna Maria City Commission’s May 28 meeting, and said it’s been frustrating to deal with Port Dolphin.

"I feel your pain," Mayor Fran Barford told him. "I know from Barrier Island Elected Officials meeting how difficult it is to get any information out of Port Dolphin."

Barford then asked Manatee County Commissioner John Chappie, who was attending the meeting, if the company had been more forthcoming with the county.

"Nobody’s sharing information with us, as far as I know either, and I’ve asked to be kept in the loop," Chappie replied.

When St. Dennis asked for a letter of support for Longboat Key’s position, Barford replied, "We will be glad to do that as soon as we are sure that it won’t impact us in any negative way in our renourishment projects."

St. Dennis then added that the location of the natural gas pipeline could also have implications for off shore drilling.

"We escaped a bullet this year, but as the drilling issue comes up, the location of the pipeline is going to have a huge impact," he said. "We want to keep it in as small and confined an area as possible, or we’ll have a network of pipes like they do off the coast of Texas."

The average beachgoer who sets up a chair and an umbrella on Anna Maria Island or Longboat Key has no idea what lies beneath.

Clean, white sand doesn’t just get washed up onto the beach by Mother Nature. It takes barges, dredges, pipes, bulldozers, permits, and money – lots of money.

It takes exploration, too: Geological surveys, marine life surveys, plant life surveys, tidal surveys, depth surveys, archeological resource surveys, and money – lots of money.

Then there are the engineering consultants, the permitting agencies, the governmental bodies, the lawyers, and money – lots more money – all spent to prevent the beaches from eroding and taking the tourism industry with them.

In the case of Port Dolphin, clean, white sand also could mean money lost for avoiding it and money gained for plowing through it.

With so much money at stake, it’s clear why so many lines have been drawn in the underwater sand off Anna Maria Island by Port Dolphin, the town of Longboat Key and Manatee County.

Port proposal refined

Port Dolphin, a subsidiary of a Norwegian shipping firm, is applying to the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) and the U.S. Coast Guard for the first of several necessary permits to build a floating liquid natural gas port 28 miles off Anna Maria Island. The Houston-based company plans to build two submersible mooring buoys about three miles apart where tankers would convert their cargoes of liquefied natural gas into vaporized natural gas, then pump it through an underwater pipeline to Port Manatee to supply electric companies.

Port Dolphin adjusted its first pipeline route in 2007 because the Florida Department of Environmental Protection was concerned that its path would destroy marine life in the Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve in Tampa Bay.

Anna Maria Island, Longboat Key and Manatee County officials expressed concern about the second route because of its potential impact on underwater sources of sand currently mined and used to renourish Longboat Key and Anna Maria Island beaches.

Manatee County and Longboat Key officials estimated that the second proposed pipeline route would have cost the county between $38-53 million over the next 40 years to find sand, or around $1 million per year, and cost Longboat Key an estimated $4 million.

The route also was heavily criticized for potential environmental impacts on marine life.

Port Dolphin responded in December 2008 with a third route addressing potential sand sources, engineering and construction constraints, hard bottom features, live bottom habitats and archaeological and other mapped environmental features. The latest route affects about 1.4 percent of already identified beach-compatible sand deposits and avoids all permitted sand resources, according to the company.

Over the past two weeks, Longboat Key officials approached the three Anna Maria Island city commissions for support in objecting to this route. Officials are supportive, but some have expressed skepticism about their power to persuade Port Dolphin to adopt a fourth pipeline route, based on the company’s response so far.

"We already rerouted at the request of Longboat Key and Manatee County," said Port Dolphin spokesman Harry Costello, of the Tampa public relations firm Hill and Knowlton. "Port Dolphin has made a very large investment in rerouting as it is."

A flood of paperwork

Last week, a torrent of reports, letters and memos about the pipeline route from Port Dolphin, two opposing engineering firms, two opposing Washington D.C. law firms, the Longboat Key mayor and the Manatee County beach renourishment director flew across Web mail, Web sites and fax machines.

At the center of the flurry is a report by Jacksonville-based Taylor Engineering, hired by Port Dolphin as an "independent consultant," a designation scoffed at by Longboat Key and Manatee County officials, to assess sand quality within 30 miles of its proposed pipeline route.

The company initially had offered to allow Manatee County and Longboat Key officials to have a say in choosing the consultant and its scope of work.

"That never happened," Longboat Key Town Manager Bruce St. Denis said. "They came to us with the ‘independent third party review’ already done. It’s not independent. We didn’t even know the criteria they gave them."

"Taylor is doing what it’s assigned to do," agreed Charlie Hunsicker, director of the Manatee County Natural Resources Department in charge of beach renourishment. "They’re only being asked to look at Port Dolphin’s corridor, not all options."

The Taylor report concludes that sand surrounding 93 percent of the route is not white enough or fine enough to be used on local beaches, and that the pipeline would impact about 711,000 cubic yards of beach quality sand.

Another Port Dolphin report, a "white paper" released last month, further defends its proposed pipeline route, dismissing local government suggestions that it should tie into the existing Gulfstream Natural Gas System pipeline.

Port Dolphin officials have said that their business plan is to compete, not co-locate, with Gulfstream.

A separate pipeline would have the capacity to supply seven times more natural gas than would be possible by connecting to the Gulfstream pipeline, which already is heavily used, according to the report.

In addition, the two systems are incompatible, since vessels designed to carry Port Dolphin’s natural gas are unable to pump it into the Gulfstream pipeline at Gulfstream’s maximum allowable operating pressure, the report states.

The report concludes that its proposed pipeline route fairly balances sand issues against national security, energy sufficiency and environmental quality concerns.

The Taylor report, coupled with Port Dolphin’s past refusal to share what it has called confidential data with the town on its underwater geological surveys, has forced the town to respond through the formal permitting process, St. Denis said.

Fourth route proposed

Longboat Key has responded to the two Port Dolphin reports with a suggestion for yet another pipeline route.

"We’re not talking about a major reroute," St. Denis said. "Their economic benefit will still be realized if they move the pipe, and our opposition goes away."

A report by Coastal Planning and Engineering, a consultant for both Longboat Key and Manatee County, charges that Port Dolphin’s Taylor report understates the volume of impacted beach-compatible sand resources by a factor of four to minimize the perceived impact of the pipeline.

Port Dolphin’s white paper, meanwhile, makes the point a different way by exaggerating the volume of potential sand that would not be impacted by the company’s proposed pipeline route, according to Coastal.

In the Taylor report, Coastal asserts, Port Dolphin has left out an area called "F2," which potentially contains a large quantity of usable sand.

Longboat Key’s suggested route, near the already-impacted Gulfstream pipeline corridor to the north of Port Dolphin’s revised route, would avoid all of the sand resources in the Taylor report, and also would avoid the F2 area that was not in the report, according to Coastal.

"We have the support of the three (Anna Maria) Island cities and the (Manatee) County Commission and the (Longboat Key) Town Commission" to place the pipeline near the Gulfstream corridor, St. Denis said.

The town’s Washington, D.C. law firm, Patton Boggs, wrote MARAD and the U.S. Coast Guard urging them to require Port Dolphin to choose the fourth route as a condition of approving their port permit.

Alleging that Port Dolphin has known for a year that its proposed pipeline route would cut through the F2 area, the law firm called Port Dolphin’s actions a "pattern of deception," and formally objected to its preferred route.

"Port Dolphin has done its utmost to hold the town at arm’s length while trying to lay the groundwork for approval of the pipeline location without having to (a) examine the true impacts of the proposed route on mineable beach sand, including in area F2, or (b) study the alternative low-impact route proposed by Longboat Key. Enough is enough, and MARAD should now direct Port Dolphin to relocate the pipeline to the low-impact corridor."

Sacrificing the F2 area would cost Longboat Key significantly more money to locate new sand sources, and would fuel conflicts over sand among Longboat and Manatee and Pinellas counties, which also are searching for sand, the firm wrote.

Longboat Key spent $500,000 last year and will spend $500,000 this year to find and permit sand sources, St. Denis said.

The town also has spent more than $250,000 on legal analysis and engineering studies to find a reasonable compromise to allow Port Dolphin’s project to move forward while protecting the region’s sand sources, Longboat Key Mayor Lee Rothenberg wrote Manatee County Chair Gwen Brown on May 28, expressing thanks for the county’s support.

County changing course?

But Manatee County may be changing course, according to Hunsicker.

"We’re starting to realize that the agencies that will be making the decisions are not the Manatee County board of commissioners," he said, explaining that the sand resources are in state waters, not under the county’s jurisdiction.

The sand issue and the many environmental issues raised in the Coast Guard’s draft Environmental Impact Statement regarding fisheries, threatened species, pollution and other concerns are for state agencies and the governor to decide, he said.

"The pipeline has to thread the needle of the different resources that have to be protected," he said.

The flip side of the green issue also has to be considered – economics.

The potential economic impact at stake for Port Manatee and Manatee County if Port Dolphin’s pipeline project is built is significant, particularly in the current economic climate, Hunsicker said.

"We’re getting down to the nuts and bolts of whether we want the company’s business," he said. "It’s a business decision for the port."

In a May 28 memo to the Manatee County Commission, Hunsicker wrote that Port Dolphin will create 82 new local jobs during the 18-month construction of the pipeline, generate $5 million in short-term benefits for Port Manatee and have a $485 million economic impact over the life of the pipeline.

In light of the state Legislature’s consideration earlier this year of a shelved plan that would have allowed oil and gas drilling in the Gulf, a natural gas port does not seem as objectionable, he said, adding, "This isn’t a nuclear power plant that we’re trying to keep out of our neighborhood."

Meanwhile, Port Dolphin’s Washington D.C. law firm, Bruder Gentile and Marcoux, is urging MARAD to speed the permit process along by not requiring the Coast Guard to make a revised draft Environmental Impact Statement, which would subject the company’s newest proposed pipeline route to the same exhaustive environmental analysis as its previous route.

Port Dolphin’s port licensing application will require public hearings, expected to be scheduled later this year. Several subsequent state and federal permits also are required before the port could be built.

The Manatee County Commission was scheduled to discuss Port Dolphin in a workshop on Tuesday, June 2.

BRADENTON BEACH – The town manager of Longboat Key took the trip across the bridge to ask this city’s commissioners for help in rerouting a natural gas pipeline in the waters north of Anna Maria Island.

Bruce St. Denis asked city commissioners to write a letter to the U.S. Coast Guard and Florida Congressman Vern Buchannan supporting Longboat’s contention that the Port Dolphin gas pipeline would cut into the area where the best sand for renourishment is located.

"They agreed to move it once, but it is still in the barrow area where we get our best sand," he said. "We want it to go further north."

St. Denis said that the loss of that barrow area could have dire consequences.

"If there isn’t enough sand out there, we would be looking at the area where you get your sand," he said.

City Attorney Ricinda Perry asked what Longboat’s deadline is and St. Denis said within the next two to three weeks. Perry asked him to send her copies of Longboat’s documentation and she would ask the city clerk to put the issue on the agenda for the next commission meeting on Thursday, June 4, at 7 p.m.

The Port Dolphin project caused a furor among Manatee County officials when it was originally proposed close enough to the barrow area that the county uses to make it too dangerous to use. The company finally relented, moving the pipeline, but has balked at moving it for Longboat Key.

LONGBOAT KEY – Port Dolphin officials have offered to prepare an engineering study that would demonstrate why they cannot build their submerged natural gas pipeline alongside Gulfstream Natural Gas System’s pipeline.

The Houston-based company has offered to allow Manatee County and Longboat Key officials to choose an independent consultant to prepare the study, which the company will pay for, Assistant Manatee County Attorney Sarah Schenk told officials on Thursday at a joint meeting of the two governments.

Port Dolphin, which is applying for permits to build a floating port in the Gulf of Mexico connected by a pipeline to Port Manatee, recently adjusted its original pipeline route in response to concerns about its potential to ruin sand reserves currently used to renourish the beaches on Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key.

Longboat Key officials are now concerned that the new route will plow through largely unexplored sand hills that are potentially important sand sources for the next 50 years, Longboat Key Town Manager Bruce St. Denis said.

"There’s not enough sand left for our next beach project in the current area," he said.

"Once that pipeline is in place, we’re out of business," Longboat Key Commissioner George Spoll added.

Officials said Thursday that a third alternative is necessary to minimize the impact on future sand reserves - the pipeline should be laid alongside the existing natural gas pipeline owned by Gulfstream Natural Gas System to the north of Port Dolphin’s revised route, St. Denis said.

"They need to use the corridor that’s already been impacted," he said, acknowledging that the alternative could be more expensive for Port Dolphin because the route is largely on hard bottom, not sand. The company is required to cover the pipeline with sand or more costly concrete mattresses or rocks.

Manatee County commissioners voiced their support of the town’s efforts to preserve long-term sand resources.

Longboat Key officials previously had asked Port Dolphin for underwater geological survey data it compiled off Anna Maria Island to determine the location of sand reserves and the quality and amount of sand in each. Port Dolphin officials refused, citing competitive business reasons.

"Port Dolphin may be going through a hill of no value, but they won’t tell us and we don’t know," St. Denis said. "We’re having to force the issue."

PALMETTO – Port Dolphin officials chose not to appear before the Council of Governments last week to answer questions about its project off Anna Maria Island.

The proposed Port Dolphin Energy Liquefied Natural Gas Deepwater Port would consist of two submersible mooring buoys about three miles apart and 100 feet deep in the Gulf of Mexico, 28 miles west of the Island. Tankers would convert their cargoes of liquid natural gas into vaporized natural gas at the floating port, then pump the gas into a proposed 42-mile-long pipeline, which would come ashore at Port Manatee to supply electric companies.

The Houston-based company clashed with Longboat Key officials at a Coalition of Barrier Island Elected Officials meeting earlier this month, when the town requested what Port Dolphin termed "confidential" information about its underwater surveys.

Port Dolphin surveyed the Gulf of Mexico bottom late last year off Bean Point to determine an alternate route for its pipeline that would have a lighter impact on underwater sand reserves used for beach renourishment on Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key.

When Longboat Key officials asked whether they had found any new sand reserves, Port Dolphin officials declined to answer, citing competitive business reasons.

Town officials got a boost at last week’s meeting when Manatee County Commissioner and Port Authority member Joe McClash announced that the county supports Longboat Key in its quest.

"Port Manatee has not reached an agreement with Port Dolphin. It was not our intention to do so until these issues are resolved," he said.

"We appreciate Manatee County’s cooperation," Longboat Key Commissioner George Spoll said. "But there’s an inherent conflict in the process."

Opposing economic interests are the issue, he said, suggesting that Port Dolphin prefers laying pipeline through sand because it’s less expensive than laying it on the Gulf floor and covering it with concrete mattresses or rocks. Locating and mining beach compatible renourishment sand also is an expensive proposition for the county and town.

"It’s quite obvious they’re balancing their pocketbook against our sand," he said.

While Port Dolphin has rerouted its proposed pipeline away from sand reserves currently used by Manatee County, its new route passes through potential sand reserves the county can reach with its existing equipment, said Charlie Hunsicker, director of the Manatee County Natural Resources Department, which is in charge of beach renourishment.

"Despite best efforts to avoid it, it’s possible that it won’t," he said. "We won’t know until we are allowed to share information on the depth and nature of the sand."

The port permitting process will afford some opportunities to ask the questions again, he said, "but it seems the company has offered all it is willing to offer."

The company expects litigation with Longboat Key, Assistant Manatee County Attorney Sarah Schenk said, cautioning against opposing Port Dolphin. The company moved its proposed route once at the county’s request, she said, and could return to its original plan, which would heavily impact underwater sand reserves.

"We acknowledge that they moved away from the existing borrow site," Longboat Key Town Manager Bruce St. Denis said. "It still goes through the best area we have for the next 50 years or more. This would all be resolved if they would share the information."

Several local, state and federal agencies must review the Port Dolphin project before it is approved.

ANNA MARIA – Port Dolphin’s newly proposed natural gas pipeline route would plow through more of the Gulf of Mexico’s sea floor off Anna Maria Island than its previously planned route, according to the company’s revised deepwater port license application.

While the new route is slightly shorter than the original 42-mile-long proposal, the disturbance to the sea floor would be greater because more of the pipeline would be buried. The new route goes through softer sea floor, the company said, allowing the pipe to be buried rather than simply covered with concrete or rocks.

After conducting extensive surveys of the sea floor late last year, Port Dolphin determined that 87 percent of the newly proposed pipeline route will be plowed, compared to 49 percent estimated in the original route.

"The only relevant impact factor is sea floor disturbance and turbidity," according to the application, which was filed in December with the U.S. Maritime Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard. Other than turbidity, the anticipated impacts on marine life are similar to those that the original pipeline route would have caused, the document states.

Port Dolphin Energy changed its original pipeline route to the north, away from underwater sand reserves off the north end of Anna Maria Island, in response to concerns from governmental agencies and environmental groups. The fine, white sand is used for beach renourishment on the Island and on Longboat Key.

The project

The Houston-based company, a subsidiary of a Norwegian shipping firm, plans to build two submersible mooring buoys about three miles apart, 28 miles west of the Island in 100 feet of water. Tankers would convert their cargoes of liquefied natural gas into vaporized natural gas at the floating port. The gas would then be pumped into the proposed pipeline, which would come ashore at Port Manatee to supply electric companies.

During the pipeline installation, a 67-foot wide trench would be dug in the sea floor and the pipe would be laid, then buried by backfilling, requiring three passes along the route by a barge, according to the application.

Where the Gulf bottom is too hard to plow, the pipeline cannot be buried, and would be covered on a fourth barge pass with concrete "mattresses" or rock "armoring."

According to the application, the first three passes would be done by a barge with 10 anchors, which would be set every 2,000 feet. Each anchor contact with the sea floor would affect an area of 360 square feet. The fourth pass would be done by a smaller barge with four smaller anchors, which would be reset every 1,000 feet, affecting 90 square feet.

Port Dolphin predicts that 27.5 acres of sea floor will be affected by the anchoring, with 67 percent of the total impacts in 18.6 acres of soft bottom habitats, and 33 percent in 8.99 acres of hard or live bottom habitats.

The pipeline installation is predicted to be more destructive than the anchors. Pipeline installation will injure both the structure and organisms on the live bottom and hard bottom communities, while the anchors will injure the organisms, but not the structure, according to the document.

Even more impacts would be caused by horizontal directional drilling in some areas, the document adds.

Effects on marine life

The application states that while the impacts to living creatures would increase, "the overall significance of the impacts remains negligible to minor. The sea floor disturbance represents a small percentage of the sea floor in the region, and the turbidity impacts will be transient. Due to the fast settling rates of the relatively coarse sediments along the pipeline route, suspended sediment plumes should be short-lived and remain fairly close to their source. The exposure of any given fish to turbidity from resuspended sediments would be short-lived (e.g., minutes to hours). Fish may temporarily avoid areas of turbidity and sea floor disturbance until the conditions return to background."

The company’s original application cited several factors that could affect marine mammals such as manatees and dolphins, including construction vessel traffic, turbidity and discharges, underwater noise, debris (entanglement/ingestion) and accidental spills. The revised application states that the new pipeline route would not significantly change those factors.

Factors potentially affecting sea turtles include construction vessel traffic, turbidity and discharges, entrainment/impingement during seawater intake, underwater noise, lighting, debris (entanglement/ingestion) and accidental spills.

Factors affecting birds include lighting on vessels during construction, operations and decommissioning, construction vessel traffic and debris (entanglement/ingestion).

"In addition, marine and coastal birds could be affected in the unlikely event of a minor hydrocarbon spill, LNG (liquefied natural gas) release, or natural gas release," the application states.

Near the mouth of Tampa Bay, the new pipeline route would pass between two National Wildlife Refuges that are bird sanctuaries; it would be slightly farther from Passage Key and closer to Egmont Key than the original route.

"The project is not near or expected to have any impact on Boca Ciega Bay, Cockroach Bay, or Pinellas County Aquatic Preserves," according to the application, but the new route parallels part of the Terra Ceia Bay Aquatic Preserve to the north of Anna Maria Island.

The U.S. Coast Guard will issue a revised Environmental Impact Statement based on the revised license application in the coming months, to be followed by public hearings and consideration by several local, state and federal permitting agencies.

HOLMES BEACH – What exactly did Port Dolphin find while surveying 12,400 acres at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico off Anna Maria Island last year?

The question was asked several times in several ways by officials of the town of Longboat Key at a Barrier Island Elected Officials meeting last Wednesday.

But they left frustrated and skeptical about Port Dolphin officials’ consistent answers – for commercial, competitive and legal reasons, it’s confidential.

"More sand is there that has not been identified yet. We asked for information, and you didn’t give it to us," Town Manager Bruce St. Denis said.

Some survey data is confidential, but the sand identified in the surveys ranges from light gray to dark brown, and is not suitable for beach renourishment, Port Dolphin’s German Castro said. He added that in-depth reviews to be conducted by multiple local, state and federal agencies during the permitting process should alleviate concerns.

But what’s under the dark sand could be fine, white beach sand, town officials say, adding that the town is willing to pay its own consultant to do studies of the sand deposits if Port Dolphin would share its data.

The Houston-based company attended the meeting to announce a proposed change in its original pipeline path, which was slated to plow through a high quality underwater sand reserve off the north end of Anna Maria Island.
In response to local official’s concerns, Port Dolphin surveyed the area and curved its new path away from the reserve used by Manatee County to renourish Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key beaches.

"We heard the community and we stepped up to get away from the sand resources," Port Dolphin spokesman Harry Costello said.

But Longboat Key officials said Wednesday that the new pipeline path could run through undiscovered reserves of fine, white sand, which is hard to come by and costly to find - the town spent has spent $1.5 million to find sand reserves since 2004.

Cities on Florida’s east coast are going as far as the Bahamas to get beach compatible sand, according to Longboat Key Mayor Hal Lenobel, who wrote the Manatee County Commission on Jan. 7 asking for support.

Thousand-foot buffer zones around the pipeline required by regulatory agencies also could reduce the feasibility of using some of the sand reserves, Lenobel said.

Castro replied that buffer zones are typically only 50 feet on either side of the pipeline.

Assistant Manatee County Attorney Sarah Schenk asked Port Dolphin to consider contracting with the county on the size of the buffer zone.

"It’s not reasonable to expect us to wait a year to find out what the buffer is," she said, referring to the length of the permitting process.

"The tradeoff seems to be it will cost us in sand or money, and they get their pipeline," St. Denis said, insisting that Port Dolphin reveal its findings.

"I suspect you’re balancing the economic reasons against our concerns," added Longboat Key Commissioner George Spoll.

Tense meeting

The tension began on Nov. 18, when Port Dolphin met with officials from Longboat Key, Manatee County, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and their consultants to show them three potential pipeline routes that would minimize the impact on currently permitted sand reserves.

While the company allowed them to look at information on computer screens, no one was allowed to download information or take photographs, St. Denis said.

It’s not the first time the town and the company have clashed. Last year, the town hired a Washington, D.C., law firm to dig up legal inadequacies in the pipeline plan. Patton Boggs filed a 26-page document with the U.S. Coast Guard criticizing the agency’s draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which detailed every aspect of the plan from engineering to the environment. A final EIS will be drafted later this year based on the new pipeline route.

The proposed Port Dolphin Energy Liquefied Natural Gas Deepwater Port would consist of two submersible mooring buoys in the Gulf of Mexico about three miles apart, 28 miles west of Anna Maria Island in 100 feet of water. Tankers would convert their cargoes of liquid natural gas into vaporized natural gas at the floating port. The gas would then be pumped into the proposed 42-mile pipeline, which would come ashore at Port Manatee to supply electric companies.

Objections are beginning to surface to a proposed submersible floating natural gas port off Anna Maria Island that one elected official remarked has been running silent and under the radar.

Several federal and state permit applications already are in the pipeline for the Port Dolphin Energy Liquefied Natural Gas Deepwater Port, which would be built 28 miles west of Anna Maria Island in 100 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico.

The "port" would consist of two submersible mooring buoys about three miles apart, where tankers would convert their cargoes of liquid natural gas into vaporized natural gas. The system is designed to allow two vessels to be moored simultaneously with the objective of continuously offloading natural gas, according to project particulars published in the Federal Register.

Once vaporized, the gas would be pumped into a proposed 42-mile-long pipeline that would come ashore at Port Manatee, where it would continue over land for about 4 miles to the Gulfstream Natural Gas System and Tampa Electric Co., which would deliver it exclusively to Florida consumers.

Port Dolphin would not be visible from shore, according to Houston-based Port Dolphin Energy LLC, a subsidiary of Oslo, Norway-based Hoegh LNG.

But its impact could be felt for miles around and for years to come.

The Sun first reported on the proposed port on Aug. 1, 2007, but details of its potential effects on water and air quality, marine life, commercial and recreational fishing, navigation and other concerns were released just weeks ago in a Draft Environmental Impact Statement by the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Maritime Administration, the initial permitting authorities for the pipeline portion of the project (see related story).

Project threatens beach renourishment

"This could end the beach renourishment program," said Charlie Hunsicker, director of the Manatee County Conservation Lands Management Department, which oversees the county’s beach renourishment program. "Port Dolphin affects it with irreparable harm. I don’t see how Manatee County can have a viable beach renourishment project into the future."

Hunsicker made the comments about the Port Dolphin plan at a public hearing May 6 on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement at the Manatee Convention Center – ironically, he said, in the Anna Maria room.

He spoke shortly after the engineering firm that coordinates the county’s beach renourishment program discovered that the planned pipeline plows through the sand excavation area used by the county and Longboat Key.

"Manatee County was aware of the project, but reviewers were focused on onshore activities," he said, adding that they had no reason to know that the underwater pipeline would be laid through the fine, white sand used to renourish the beaches until Coastal Planning and Engineering unearthed the plan.

Manatee County’s seven miles of beaches and Longboat Key’s 12 miles are considered critically eroded by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Coastal Planning marine geologist Beau Suthard told the panel.

He added that their need for sand, along with Pinellas County’s beaches to the north, has resulted in increased competition for dwindling resources.

Since the U.S. Dept. of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service could require up to a 1,000 meter (approximately 3,000 feet) buffer on either side of the pipeline, the county could be prevented from mining there and lose 40 years worth of sand, he said.

Searching for equivalent sand in what would likely be deeper water would require switching from a shallow water cutterhead dredging technology to the more expensive hopper dredging technology, he said.

The cost increase is estimated between $38-53 million over the next 40 years, or around $1 million per year. The estimated total cost increase for Longboat Key is $4 million.

The county’s beach renourishment program is funded through the tourist tax, but that is barely enough to keep up with current needs, much less an increased cost, Hunsicker said.

As a result, finding a new sand source may require taxing Anna Maria Island residents, he said. Longboat Key residents already are taxed because their technology is more expensive since their source is farther away from their location.

Longboat Key town commissioners met on May 5 and sent Longboat Key Public Works Director Juan Florensa to the hearing to express their concern about the impact on sand resources.

"It’s not our intent to kill the project, but to find a route that would avoid impacting taxpayer dollars," he said.

"Our path crosses only one sand borrow area and takes up less than 1 percent of that area," responded German Castro, Project Development Manager for Port Dolphin in Tampa. "The impact is negligible."

Gulfstream objects

The proposed pipeline route is also problematic for the Gulfstream Natural Gas System, which operates an open access interstate transmission pipeline that extends underwater from Mobile Bay, Ala. to Port Manatee, then over land to Palm Beach County.

The company cannot prevent other companies like Port Dolphin from using its pipeline, Gulfstream spokesman Christopher Stockton said, comparing the pipeline to a railroad track used by various railroad lines.

Port Dolphin’s pipeline would be a non-open access"pipeline for its exclusive use.

While economic competition may be a factor, Gulfstream says it objects to both the proposed Port Dolphin pipeline route, which comes within 25 feet of Gulfstream’s onshore pipeline, and Port Dolphin’s proposal to connect with Gulfstream’s onshore pipeline for other reasons.

"They’re proposing to tap our line, but we would like them to tap it in a particular place offshore instead of on land because of safety and environmental issues," Stockton said.

During construction of the Port Dolphin pipeline, an accident 25 feet from the Gulfstream pipeline, which has natural gas flowing through it, could be disastrous, he said.

"As the source of 35 percent of the state’s natural gas pipeline capacity, Gulfstream is critically concerned with the safety to its system which could be compromised by the Port Dolphin proposal," Gulfstream’s lawyers wrote in a letter to the Coast Guard and the Maritime Administration on April 21.

"Gulfstream opposes and protests the proposal to allow its narrow right-of-way in the Port Manatee area to be used for the unneeded construction and operation of the proposed Port Dolphin pipeline. And Gulfstream will not agree to the point of interconnection selected by Port Dolphin."

Port Dolphin responded in a May 6 letter to the Maritime Administration that its "proposed onshore route, which crosses and briefly parallels Gulfstream’s main line within Port Manatee property, is consistent with commission policy and precedent. The commission prefers routes in which two or more pipelines are co-located and often share rights-of-way, and the Draft Environmental Impact Statement follows this well-settled policy. Gulfstream’s suggested interconnection with Port Dolphin under the Gulf of Mexico is not in the public interest.

“The offshore interconnection would eliminate all possible onshore interconnections, including the planned interconnection with TECO/Peoples Gas, the interconnection with Gulfstream, and a possible interconnection with Florida Gas Transmission Co. in Manatee County," Port Dolphin’s lawyers wrote.

Manatee County’s engineering firm has recommended that Port Dolphin build its pipeline within the existing Gulfstream pipeline corridor to avoid the route taking the pipeline through the county’s beach sand mining area, an option opposed by Gulfstream.

"A second alternative would consist of tapping into the Gulfstream pipeline well offshore, thus eliminating the need to traverse potential State of Florida sand resources with a new pipeline," Coastal Planning wrote, the plan which Gulfstream prefers.

Elected officials mobilizing

Elected officials began to mobilize after the May 6 public hearing, which none attended.

"They have been extremely low key with this, under the radar," said state Sen. Mike Bennett, adding that he would begin investigating alternate routes for the pipeline to keep the cost down for the beach renourishment program. "There’s always another alternative. It’s who’s going to pay the expense."

"The idea doesn’t seem conducive to our county. It’s so close to the tip of the Island," said Manatee County Commissioner Carol Whitmore, who added that she intends to contact the county’s state and federal legislative delegations.

"We definitely have some concerns," agreed Manatee County Commissioner Jane von Hahmann, who notified the county’s environmental department. "There are several issues we are going to raise."

PORT MANATEE – Manatee County commissioners are delighted with Port Dolphin’s unexpected offer to relocate its proposed natural gas pipeline to avoid an underwater beach renourishment sand reserve.

But the commissioners, who also serve as members of the Port Authority for Port Manatee, where the pipeline would come ashore, told the natural gas shipping company that they expect even more.

"We’ve heard the community loud and clear," Port Dolphin spokesman Harry Costello said, apologizing for what he called "miscommunication" over where the pipeline would be built.

"We want to be a good neighbor," he said. "We will do a better job in communicating."

More concerns

While acknowledging Port Dolphin’s concession, Commission Chairman Jane von Hahmann made it clear that the dialogue is just beginning between the low-profile company and the county.

"There are other items besides the sand source," she said, including environmental impacts.

Commissioner Gwen Brown echoed concerns about the marine environment in the Gulf of Mexico where the floating regasification port is proposed for 28 miles off Anna Maria Island. She asked Port Dolphin to contact all the environmental groups in Manatee County to show its good faith.

While the commission and the port authority are comprised of the same officials, von Hahmann said the members are concerned about protecting the community, not just attracting business to the port.

Port Authority Chairman Joe McClash agreed.

"It pains me to hear we might want to disregard the environment – that’s not the case," he said.

Sharing pipe

Commissioner Amy Stein, who mailed out brochures last week to line up support against Port Dolphin’s pipeline route, raised a concern about the Houston-based company’s proposal to build its own proprietary pipeline when another natural gas pipeline is available nearby.

Gulfstream Natural Gas System has offered to allow Port Dolphin to tap into its pipeline offshore, but Port Dolphin officials have said technical issues would prevent the two systems from being compatible.

An offshore interconnect with Gulfstream is favored, Stein said, encouraging Port Dolphin to share technical specifications with Gulfstream before meeting again with the commission.

The company has no current plans to connect offshore with Gulfstream, Costello said.

Until Manatee County’s beach renourishment engineering firm, Coastal Planning and Engineering, discovered that Port Dolphin’s plans included installing its pipeline in an offshore sand reserve, government officials and citizens were largely in the dark about the project.

While county staff reviewed the onshore portion of the pipeline in March, they had not yet become aware of the offshore portion, said Manatee County’s Charlie Hunsicker. As director of the county’s Conservation Lands Management Department, it was Hunsicker who brought Coastal’s findings to light in May.

Coastal estimated a $53.2 million cost to the county over the next four beach renourishment projects, spaced 10 years apart, and another $4.75 million for Longboat Key to find and dredge equivalent quality sand.

"A very important precedent has been established to protect important beach compatible sand sources as we look to the future of the very real potential for additional oil and gas exploration," Hunsicker said. "Should those explorations prove fruitful, each of those companies will be looking to offshore undersea pipeline routes to bring their product to southwest Florida, and in that event, the importance that we have placed thus far on the sand resources will be a message loud and clear into the foreseeable future."

Other sand sources

The town of Longboat Key, part of which lies in Manatee County, is also looking to the future when current sand reserves will be depleted, and is exploring the Gulf for other sand sources near Port Dolphin’s pipeline route.

"We are cautiously optimistic that the relocation of the pipeline would also attempt to avoid other areas that we are currently studying offshore for sand," said Juan Florensa, town public works director. "We are willing to share technical information with Port Dolphin on where the other reserves are so they can avoid them."

The recent involvement of elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, who gained the support of 14 members of Congress to oppose the pipeline route, and a law firm that Longboat Key hired to fight the pipeline, likely prompted Port Dolphin’s action, he said.

"I think they underestimated the opposition."

A floating liquefied natural gas port similar to the Port Dolphin project proposed off Anna Maria Island is in the works on Florida’s East Coast, where Port Calypso is responding to community concerns with its pocketbook.

Port Calypso is a project of Houston-based Suez Energy North America, an affiliate of the Paris-based company that built the Suez Canal 140 years ago.

The proposed Calypso, 10 miles off Port Everglades in the Atlantic Ocean, would dock tankers that convert liquefied natural gas to gas, then pipe it ashore to Port Everglades in its own pipeline.

Port Dolphin Energy, also based in Houston, proposes its port 28 miles off Anna Maria Island in the Gulf of Mexico, and would build its own pipeline to transport the same product to Port Manatee.

Both projects have heard their share of concerns from impacted communities.

But the similarities in their approaches to those concerns end there.

Dolphin’s proposed pipeline path would make Manatee County’s submerged beach renourishment sand area inaccessible, costing the county an estimated $50 million over the next 40 years to find and mine similar quality sand elsewhere, according to county officials.

Calypso’s pipeline path was scheduled to run through a coral reef. The company responded by committing to build a $100 million tunnel underneath the reef, similar to the channel tunnel, or chunnel, connecting the United Kingdom and France, said Dan McGinnis, vice president and project manager for Suez.

While Dolphin critics have suggested the company avoid the Gulf sand bed by using directional drilling to lay the pipeline underneath it, Calypso rejected that system.

"We decided to build a tunnel beneath the surface," McGinnis said, describing it as a concrete-encased dry tunnel three miles long that will hold the pipeline and a monorail system, enabling workers to access it from inside.

"We’re building a subway system," he said. "It hits our economics, but every one of these (projects) is different and we have to respect the tremendous ecosystem."

Fish count

Calypso also hired a private consultant for close to $2 million to do an ichthyoplankton study on fish species living in the project’s Atlantic region, which is heavily fished, according to McGinnis.

Dolphin’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement, meanwhile, has been criticized by marine biologists as having inadequate details on marine species that would be impacted in the Gulf.

"We had to run the most extensive 15-month ichthyoplankton survey in the world" to comply with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) requirements, McGinnis said. He also said the company would continue to monitor impacts on fish populations at additional expense after construction.

Talking to the community

The companies also have differed in their approaches to their respective communities.

Most officials on Anna Maria Island, Longboat Key, Manatee County commissioners and state and federal legislators learned of the Dolphin project after its first local public hearing May 6 – after the company’s environmental impact statement was finished and fairly far along in the permitting process.

Calypso, on the other hand, began working with community leaders and agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, NOAA and the U.S. Minerals Management Service, two and a half years before its Draft Environmental Impact Statement was released a few months ago, McGinnis said.

"We are extremely proud of our outreach program," he said, noting that the company has significant experience. Suez is in the construction phase of a similar project, Port Neptune, off Gloucester, Mass. "These things aren’t easy to site. If outreach isn’t happening, you’re dropping the ball."

While some beachfront residents have objected to Calypso because it would be visible from shore at 10 miles out and would pose safety concerns, the company has held five federally sanctioned public hearings and about a dozen community meetings with fisheries groups and residents to explain the project and address concerns, he said, calling natural gas "very safe" and "very clean."

Whichever company gets a permit first will have the first facility of its kind in Florida waters, he said, but the two companies are in separate permitting processes that do not depend on the outcome of the other, McGinnis said.

"The companies are only technically in competition," he said, since Calypso is primarily an energy company and Dolphin is primarily a shipping company, and since each is negotiating with different power plants as potential customers: FP&L for Calypso and TECO for Dolphin.

"There is plenty of demand for gas in Florida," McGinnis said.

Longboat Key has hired a Washington D.C. law firm to research legal inadequacies of the Port Dolphin liquefied natural gas pipeline plan.

Patton Boggs LLP filed a 26-page document with the U.S. Coast Guard last week criticizing the agency’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) as "legally inadequate under the standards of the National Environmental Policy Act, the rules of the Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of Transportation’s regulations on siting and environmental review of facilities for which a license is sought under the Deepwater Port Act."

The DEIS failed to adequately examine alternate methods for transporting natural gas from the proposed floating port to Port Manatee, overlooked the pipeline’s impact on underwater sand resources and demonstrated inadequate consultation with local governments, according to the document.

"The town of Longboat Key does not oppose the Port Dolphin project, but we believe that a license cannot properly be issued for the port unless the project adopts an alternative to the proposed pipeline or to the proposed route for the pipeline," Mayor Hal Lenobel wrote in an accompanying letter.

Two local scientists have written to the U.S. Coast Guard with concerns about Port Dolphin after reviewing its lead environmental study.

The study on the potential environmental impact of the proposed liquefied natural gas port and pipeline is "fundamentally flawed," according to Steve LeGore, an independent consultant with LeGore Environmental Associates Inc. in Holmes Beach.

Echoing concerns of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, LeGore filed comments with the Coast Guard about its Draft Environmental Impact Statement last week, saying that the study contains insufficient hard data on marine life to accurately determine the port’s potential impacts.

"Without quantitative data you can’t have a scale of impacts, and without a scale of impacts, how do policy makers make decisions?" LeGore said. "They need to have the right information to make the right decisions."

While LeGore said he is not opposed to a liquefied natural gas port, he called the study "inconsistent" and "repetitious," and wrote that it needs to include more details, including a survey of biological species, citations to scientific literature and a strong monitoring plan.

"We need these ports," he said. "But we need to go through the process properly and the best way we can for the environment."

LeGore also questioned an apparent inconsistency in the study, which states that "Siting a project in an identified sand resource would be difficult, and likely would not be approved by Minerals Management Service." The proposed pipeline route would traverse Manatee County’s beach renourishment sand reserves.

Mote Marine Laboratory

The Port Dolphin site lies within eight miles of several important "karsts," or underwater springs and sinkholes found about 30 miles offshore, where the port would be constructed, according to James Culter, a senior scientist with Mote Marine Laboratory’s Benthic Ecology Program.

The openings to the karsts are often small, making them hard to detect, but they open into cavernous holes teeming with marine life including amberjack, grouper and sea turtles, he wrote, adding that rare whale sharks also have been sighted near the karsts.

The karsts also may contain prehistoric human remains and artifacts like similar land-based sinkholes in Sarasota County, he suggested.

Only about 20 karst sites have been identified off Florida’s west coast, with the majority clustered around Tampa Bay, and other unknown sites are likely in the area, he wrote, suggesting that Port Dolphin use sonar and SCUBA divers to search for karsts in the vicinity of the proposed port site.

With the support of 14 members of Congress, U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan has written the U.S. Dept. of Transportation to oppose Port Dolphin’s planned natural gas pipeline route off Anna Maria Island.

The agency is reviewing the proposed floating port, where tankers would convert liquefied natural gas to vapor 28 miles off the Island, then send it by pipeline to Port Manatee.

The June 4 letter urges the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Maritime Administration to reject Port Dolphin’s proposed pipeline location, which would cross the underwater sand source used for Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key’s beach renourishment program, making it - and four other potential sand mining areas - off limits.

"Beach related tourism is the mainstay of the region’s economy," Buchanan wrote. "Erosion of the white sand beaches because of inaccessibility of compatible sand deposits would compromise public safety and severely depress the economy, reducing employment and tax revenues."

Expressing support for Anna Maria, Bradenton Beach, Holmes Beach, Longboat Key and Manatee, Sarasota and Pinellas counties, Buchanan and the Congressional contingent recommended considering safe and viable alternative routes. The move comes especially in light of a $35 million investment already made in the sand source, and an estimated $55 million cost to find sand elsewhere.

The members of Congress who signed Buchanan’s letter are Gus Bilirakis, Ginny Brown-Waite, Kathy Castor, Ander Crenshaw, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart, Alcee Hastings, Connie Mack, Jeff Miller, Adam Putnam, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Cliff Sterns, Dave Weldon and Bill Young.

Buchanan also wrote Port Dolphin to encourage a dialogue about four alternate pipeline routes suggested by Manatee County’s engineering firm, Coastal Planning and Engineering.

Port Dolphin is "currently working to identify feasible technical solutions to meet Longboat Key and Manatee County concerns," according to a comment filed with the Coast Guard on June 2 by one of the company’s attorneys, J. Michel Marcoux. "To that end, Port Dolphin met with Longboat Key on May 27, 2008 and is working to schedule a meeting with Manatee County officials in the near future. These meetings are intended to facilitate open dialogue among the parties to better understand and address their concerns."

Other elected officials weigh in

State Rep. Bill Galvano sent a letter to Port Dolphin on June 6 in support of Buchanan’s letter.

"Anna Maria Island is known for its pristine beaches which contribute to a vibrant community and tourist-driven economy," Galvano wrote. "That is why we are vigilant against potential projects that will ultimately put the Island in economic and environmental peril."

State Sen. Mike Bennett said he is discussing alternate pipeline routes with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which he calls "very cooperative."

"I don’t object to the pipeline, I object to the route of the pipeline," he said. "We want to shift it away from the sand."

DEP’s comments filed last week on the pipeline include a recommendation that alternate routes be "thoroughly evaluated" to protect beach quality sand reserves.

"Protection of beach sand sources is a high priority, especially in light of increased hurricane activity and potential sea level rise," the report states. It also recommends investigating the feasibility of an offshore interconnection with the existing Gulfstream Natural Gas System pipeline.

U.S. Rep. Bill Young of Pinellas County, who signed Buchanan’s letter, is concerned about the pipeline jeopardizing Manatee County’s sand because it will place the county in competition with Pinellas County for limited sand reserves farther north, a staffer said.

Pinellas County is currently conducting a $1 million search for sand reserves, according to Pinellas County interim county administrator Fred Marquis, who filed objections to the pipeline route with the Coast Guard last week.

U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez did not return telephone calls.

Congressional report filed

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, who signed Buchanan’s letter, also filed separate comments with the Coast Guard, including a 67-page Congressional report on liquefied natural gas.

"A natural gas spill on water would result in a widening pool of liquefied gas spreading across the water," Castor wrote. "If ignited, the danger and environmental impacts would be catastrophic. Of particular concern is the volatile nature of natural gas, which could evaporate and cause flammable vapor clouds."

According to the report, "If liquefied natural gas spills near an ignition source, evaporating gas will burn above the gas pool. The pool fire would spread as the pool expanded away from its source and continued evaporating. A pool fire is intense, burning far more hotly and rapidly than oil or gasoline fires. It cannot be extinguished - all the liquefied natural gas must be consumed before it goes out… Many experts agree that a large pool fire, especially on water, is the most serious liquefied natural gas hazard."

The report also warns that a flammable vapor cloud can develop if liquefied natural gas spills but does not immediately ignite, and can explode if it drifts into an ignition source, burning its way back to the spill.

"Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is an odorless, non-toxic and non-corrosive liquid, and if spilled, LNG would not result in a slick. Absent an ignition source, LNG evaporates quickly and disperses, leaving no residue. There is no environmental cleanup needed for LNG spills on water," according to the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, an industry trade group.

A trickle of comments has turned into a stream of environmental and economic concerns about the proposed Port Dolphin natural gas port and pipeline.

Increasing awareness of the project prompted public agencies and private citizens to file comments with the U.S. Coast Guard a few days before its June 2 public comment deadline.

The agency is reviewing the proposed floating port, where tankers would convert liquefied natural gas to vapor 28 miles from the north end of Anna Maria Island, then ship it through a 42-mile-long pipeline to Port Manatee.

The Coast Guard’s Final Environmental Impact Statement, which will reflect the comments, is due in July, followed by a final public hearing in August and a decision expected by the end of the year.

Several other state and federal permits also would be required to construct the port.

Manatee County

Manatee County objects to the proposed path of Port Dolphin’s pipeline, saying it would make the county’s offshore supply of beach renourishment sand inaccessible and cost the county $53.2 million over the next 40 years to replace it.

Jeopardizing the renourishment program could lead to the loss of public beaches as a recreational resource and a habitat for sea turtles and other creatures, in addition to a loss of tourists, a reduction in employment and tax revenues, increased flooding and the undermining of hurricane evacuation routes, according to comments prepared by Coastal Planning and Engineering, the county’s beach renourishment advisor.

Coastal recommends four alternate routes for the pipeline that it claims would not affect the sand resources, including tapping into the nearby existing Gulfstream Natural Gas Systems pipeline, to which Gulfstream has agreed, and laying the pipeline nine miles west of Egmont Key parallel to the Gulfstream pipeline.

The county asks that alternative routes be presented in a second version of the Coast Guard’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement before the agency issues its final statement.

Longboat Key

The Town of Longboat Key, which also mines the state-owned sand source off Anna Maria Island for its beach renourishment program, filed a 61-page objection to the pipeline with similar concerns.

Prepared by Coastal, the engineering firm that advises Manatee County, the document notes that Longboat Key pays for its beach renourishment differently, with town taxes in addition to the tourist tax tourist tax revenue that Manatee County relies on.

Longboat Key was counting on using another 1.5 million cubic yards of the sand in its next project, which, according to the comments, will be impossible under the pipeline plan, putting its beaches in jeopardy.

The pipeline route also impinges on four, hilly sand sources the town had earmarked for future beach renourishment projects, according to the document.

Finding equivalent sand elsewhere will cost the town an estimated $4.75 million or more, depending on the size of the safety buffer zone around the pipeline.

"The direct impact, while extreme by itself, could lead to significant cumulative impacts to the economy, public safety and the environment of the Town of Longboat Key," the document states, citing increased erosion and flooding, and loss of beaches, tourism, jobs and taxes as consequences.

The town requested a more detailed analysis of alternative pipeline routes in a second version of the Coast Guard’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch

Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch objects to the pipeline because it would

endanger the county’s beach renourishment project, which would in turn endanger imperiled sea turtles, according to director Suzi Fox.

Making the beaches wider increases nesting activity because it increases the amount of space available for nests, she said, adding that the opposite is also likely.

The construction of the port and pipeline also could destroy seagrasses, a habitat for sea turtles.

The floating port’s water exchange systems also could affect turtles, she said. The engine cooling system would discharge hot water into the Gulf, and its regasification system, which would use Gulf water to warm the liquefied natural gas into vapor so that it can be piped ashore, would discharge cold water into the Gulf.

"Minor and short term impacts" to sea turtles cited in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement are not acceptable, she said.

Florida Department of Environmental Protection

DEP comments had not been filed by press time, but its Bureau of Beaches and Coastal Systems detailed its written objections to the Port Dolphin project in a May 23 memo for inclusion in the agency’s comments.

"Elimination of known suitable sand sources would cause great expense and delay, possibly subjecting local communities to increased storm damage, loss of tourism and loss of habitat for threatened and endangered species including marine turtles and shorebirds," according to the bureau, which is responsible for managing Florida’s beach and dune systems under Florida law.

The memo stated a preference that Port Dolphin’s pipeline follow Gulfstream’s pipeline path to minimize its impact.

It also suggested that the company could dig underneath sensitive habitat areas using hydraulic directional drilling to lay the pipeline, rather than destroying the areas by laying it directly on the sea floor.

The bureau also warned that clearing a path on the sea floor for the pipeline could "facilitate colonization by the invasive, exotic green mussel, which could reduce or negate the value of some mitigation strategies."

Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Service

Port Dolphin would impact an area considered to be essential habitat for crab, lobster, shrimp, grouper, snapper, amberjack, mackerel, red drum and cobia, according to the service, which disagrees with the data the Coast Guard used to assess the port’s impact on marine life.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The U.S. Dept. of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service recommends creating wetlands elsewhere to compensate for the destruction of wetlands during the pipeline construction, which could reduce habitat for wood storks. It also recommends using standard protection measures to reduce construction-related collisions with manatees, implementing a light-management plan to avoid disorienting sea turtles and using standard measures to protect the eastern indigo snake on the land-based portion of the pipeline.

Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

The department’s Division of Aquaculture requested that Port Dolphin’s pipeline be constructed between November and February to minimize interference with oyster spawning.

ManaSota-88

The Nokomis-based environmental group recommends considering alternative pipeline routes and tapping into the existing Gulfstream pipeline.

U.S. Mineral Management Service

The U.S. Dept. of the Interior’s Mineral Management Service questioned the Coast Guard’s assessment that natural gas production is declining. It also suggested including information about using ocean currents as an energy source alternative.

Anna Maria Island residents

Kim and Brian Lockhart of Bradenton Beach and Cincinnati, Ohio, oppose Port Dolphin, citing potential environmental problems, its proposed path through beach renourishment sand reserves and the company’s refusal to respond to Gulfstream’s invitation to tap into its pipeline.

"Port Dolphin is being irresponsible and a poor corporate citizen by placing their needs above the general public and island property owners," they wrote. "We will not accept their arrogant attitude toward us."

Carl and Georgia Van Cleave wrote to oppose the project for several reasons, primarily the extra expense to Manatee County for its beach renourishment sand, which they predict will be paid for by local, state and federal taxpayers, not Port Dolphin.

They also cited environmental concerns including spills in accidents or storms, destruction of hard bottom habitat and seagrass beds, and the tanker engine cooling system’s expected effect on marine life. They also are opposed to the construction of a private pipeline when Port Dolphin could tap into an existing pipeline.

ANNA MARIA – Responding to concerns about eroding beaches and tourism revenue, Anna Maria commissioners are notifying other elected officials that the city opposes Port Dolphin’s pipeline plans.

Port Dolphin is a proposed floating port 28 miles from the north end of Anna Maria Island where liquefied natural gas would be converted to vapor, then shipped through a 42-mile-long pipeline to Port Manatee.

Commissioners voted Thursday night to submit the city’s objections to the pipeline portion of the project to its Congressional and Legislative delegations prior to June 2, when the U.S. Coast Guard, the first of several regulators on the project, was scheduled to begin finalizing its Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

Commissioners cited concerns that the proposed pipeline would plow through Manatee County’s offshore beach renourishment sand source and be surrounded by a safety buffer zone that would force the county to find sand elsewhere at an estimated $53.2 million cost over the next 40 years.

Officials of Port Dolphin have not responded to the county’s request to change its proposed pipeline path, although Coastal Planning and Engineering, Manatee County’s engineering firm, has identified four alternate routes, said Charlie Hunsicker, the county’s Conservation Lands Management Department Director, who requested the commission’s action.

Alternatives

"All options are being looked at," said Harry Costello, a public relations executive representing Houston-based Port Dolphin Energy LLC, a subsidiary of Norwegian company Hoegh LNG. "They understand the community’s concerns about the available sand."

Options include relocating the pipeline farther north, installing the pipeline under the sand bed using directional drilling technology, and trenching, which requires removing the sand, installing the pipeline and replacing the sand on top of it, he said, adding that the last option is costly and unlikely.

Also unlikely, he said, is for Port Dolphin to tap into the Gulfstream Natural Gas Systems pipeline offshore, an option suggested by Coastal.

The Gulfstream pipeline already has natural gas flowing through it much of the time; its limited capacity could keep Port Dolphin from being able to access the pipeline when its tankers are ready to offload, he said, adding that Port Dolphin also may lack the ability to pump its natural gas at the required pressure into Gulfstream’s line.

The pipeline’s estimated $53.2 million cost to the county over the next four beach renourishment projects, spaced 10 years apart, represents the cost of finding equivalent quality fine, white sand - most likely farther offshore - which would require a different, more expensive type of mining technology, according to Hunsicker.

Even if Port Dolphin paid a fee to compensate for the 40-year impact, the county’s tourist tax – the primary fund for beach renourishment – would be inadequate to cover the increased cost after that, he said.

If the county is forced to seek sand elsewhere, the renourishment project area could be reduced, he said, adding that Island residents also could see their property taxes increase to cover the funding shortfall.

"The more likely scenario is that we will stop the beach renourishment program," he said.

Without a wide, white beach, Island tourism could decrease, reducing tourist tax revenues and employment in the hospitality, real estate, recreation, retail, transportation and food industries, he said.

Beyond tourism

The economic impact of not renourishing the beaches goes beyond tourism, Hunsicker said, potentially compromising public utilities, hurricane evacuation routes, sea turtle nesting and private property, especially in the three-block wide portion of Bradenton Beach.

In addition, Manatee County, the Town of Longboat Key, the State of Florida and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers already have spent $35 million to find, permit and dredge the existing sand source, money that would be wasted if the pipeline is built on its projected path, Hunsicker said.

It’s also possible that no comparable sand is available, he said, because the sand in the path of the pipeline is a product of Gulf of Mexico and Tampa Bay currents that may not exist elsewhere.

Florida law requires that beaches be renourished with geologically identical sand.

Manatee County commissioners plan to protest a natural gas pipeline slated to pass through the underwater area off Anna Maria where the county mines beach renourishment sand.

Houston-based Port Dolphin Energy LLC plans to build the floating Port Dolphin 28 miles offshore, where liquefied natural gas would be converted to gas in tankers and piped ashore to Port Manatee.

The county’s primary objection is the pipeline location, Commissioner Jane von Hahmann said, adding that the commission has decided to file a letter opposing the plan by the June 2 public comment deadline.

Regulators could require a buffer zone of up to 3,000 feet on either side of the submerged portion of the pipeline, which would prevent a dredge from reaching much of the sand.

Charlie Hunsicker, who oversees the county’s beach renourishment program, sounded the alarm earlier this month that the project could jeopardize beach renourishment and, ultimately, tourism on the Island, citing the anticipated cost of finding similar quality sand elsewhere at up to $50 million over the next four decades.

The county’s letter also will address commissioners’ support of an alternative proposed by Gulfstream Natural Gas System, von Hahmann said.

Gulfstream, which operates an open access pipeline extending underwater from Mobile Bay, Ala. to Port Manatee, prefers that Port Dolphin connect to its pipeline offshore rather than building a 42-mile long pipeline to Port Manatee and connecting onshore.

Bringing a second pipeline onshore at Port Manatee in Gulfstream’s 25-foot-wide easement, part of which is in a drainage ditch, poses safety concerns because construction and maintenance work in the ditch could create a spark and cause a gas fire, von Hahmann said.

Another concern is the environmental impact of the pipeline on the sea floor, she said.

While Gulfstream involved the county and the public early in its permitting process, Port Dolphin officials’ first contact with the county was last week, when they requested a meeting, she said.

Commissioners also decided to send letters to the Legislative delegation in Tallahassee and the Congressional delegation in Washington D.C. requesting support.

Upon learning of the project, state Sen. Mike Bennett and state Rep. Bill Galvano told The Sun that they would begin investigating; Bennett said he would look into alternate routes for the pipeline, and Galvano said he would consider organizing a town hall meeting about the project.

A staffer for U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan said he was reviewing the proposal.

U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez, both of whom have opposed natural gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, did not return telephone calls.

More than a dozen federal, state and local regulatory agencies and the governor must approve the project before it materializes.

Public comments invited before June 2

Comments on the proposed Port Dolphin project should be sent to the Federal Docket Management Facility before June 2 by one of the following methods:
• Mail or delivery to the Federal Docket Management Facility, Department of Transportation, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. 20590
• Phone: 202-366-9329
• Fax: 202-493-2251
• E-mail from Web site: www.regulations.gov. Enter USCG–2007–28532 in the "search" field, then click on "send a comment or submission."

Submissions should include name, address and docket number USCG–2007–28532.

Faxed or hand-delivered submissions must be unbound, no larger than 81⁄2 by 11 inches and suitable for copying and electronic scanning.

All submissions will be posted without changes at www.regulations.gov and will include all personal information provided.

Port Dolphin’s plan to build a floating natural gas port and pipeline 28 miles off Anna Maria Island poses several environmental problems, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).

The port would host tankers that convert liquefied natural gas to vaporized gas and transport it through a 42-mile-long pipeline to a Gulfstream Natural Gas System pipeline onshore at Port Manatee.

In a May 22 letter to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the FWC warns that the proposed pipeline and two seawater cooling and warming systems could interfere with horseshoe crab spawning and harm fish, corals and seagrass.

"We are concerned that measures to minimize impacts to fish and wildlife resources have not yet been fully explored," wrote the FWC’s Mary Ann Poole in the letter, which will be included with DEP’s formal comments to the U.S. Coast Guard, one of several agencies with regulatory authority over the project.

"The (statement) does not provide mitigation or monitoring plans for impacts to biological resources," the letter charges.

Problems for horseshoe crabs

To mitigate its effect on the environment, Port Dolphin should consider connecting its pipeline to the Gulfstream pipeline offshore, not onshore as proposed, according to the FWC, which requests that Port Dolphin resolve interconnection issues with Gulfstream and report the resolution to the Coast Guard.

The underwater pipeline could impact horseshoe crab spawning because it will not be possible to bury it in the hard bottom along some stretches of the 42-mile route, and it could block crabs from reaching shallow water and sandy beaches to mate, Poole wrote. Horseshoe crab numbers have been declining for several years, according to the FWC, which tracks spawning habits of the species.

In addition, unburied pipeline is typically covered with concrete "mattresses," which can move during storms and destroy animal and plants species that live on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, the letter states, adding, "We recommend that the applicant investigate alternate routes around significant hardbottom communities."

Discharge could affect fish larvae

Another potential problem is that Port Dolphin’s seawater intake and discharge systems would change Gulf water temperature around the port, which could affect the fishery, according to Lisa Gregg, the FWC’s project leader reviewing the Port Dolphin proposal.

One system would cool the engines with Gulf water and discharge it as hot water. The other would use Gulf water to warm the liquefied natural gas from its temperature of minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit to regasify it, producing a cold water discharge.

Concerned about a round-the-clock impact of hot and cold water discharge into Gulf waters surrounding Port Dolphin, the FWC requested details on the amount of seawater intake and discharge in the systems. It also asked that Port Dolphin only use tankers using a closed loop system for regasification, and address its reasons for not using tankers with a closed loop system for engine cooling.

While the water intake velocity of the systems is not strong enough to suck in sea turtle hatchlings or fish, it would suck in and destroy fish and crab larvae, Gregg said.

In a memo from the FWC to the Coast Guard, she wrote that the data used in the Coast Guard’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement is inadequate to assess the impact of the seawater systems on larvae and plankton.

"We don’t know if the area is a larval transport area," she said, because animal samples were not taken at all, and fish samples were not taken from enough different water depths in areas close enough to the proposed port to be relevant. Samples also were not taken during enough months of the year to provide a complete picture of the larvae population in the area, she said.

Other concerns

The FWC letter also lists other concerns, including a potential loss of fishing grounds due to safety zones required around the port and the destruction of corals, seagrasses and bottom-dwelling organisms resulting from digging up the sea floor to bury the pipeline and anchor the port’s dual buoy system.

A preliminary letter from the DEP to the Coast Guard dated May 20 echoes the FWC’s concerns and requests more information on Port Dolphin’s plan to mitigate its impact on the environment.

Public comments on the Coast Guard’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement will be accepted until June 2.

PORT MANATEE – Representatives of Port Manatee and Port Dolphin are negotiating over the placement of a controversial proposed natural gas pipeline, according to Manatee County officials.

"They came to us with their project and we’re trying to meet their requirements as we did with Gulfstream," said Port Manatee Director Dave McDonald, referring to an existing natural gas pipeline running from Port Manatee to Mobile Bay, Ala.

McDonald met with Port Dolphin representatives last week to discuss the county’s concerns about the proposed project, Manatee County Port Authority Chairman Joe McClash announced Thursday at a port authority meeting.

"There is no meeting of the minds yet" between Port Dolphin and Port Manatee on the pipeline location, McClash said.

Port Dolphin Energy LLC proposes to build a floating port 28 miles west of Anna Maria Island in the Gulf of Mexico where tankers would convert liquefied natural gas to vaporized gas and offload it into a 42-mile-long pipeline coming ashore at Port Manatee, where it would connect to the Gulfstream Natural Gas System and Tampa Electric Co.

County officials recently learned that the proposed pipeline path would plow sand borrow for the county’s and Longboat Key’s beach renourishment programs, and will impact both marine and land habitats.

A spokesman for the Houston-based Port Dolphin, a subsidiary of Norwegian company Hoegh LNG, has called the project’s impact on sand resources "negligible."

Searching for equivalent sand elsewhere could cost Manatee County $38 million to $53 million over the next 40 years and Longboat Key $4 million, according to Charlie Hunsicker, director of the Manatee County Conservation Lands Management Department.

As a result, finding a new sand source may require taxing Anna Maria Island residents, he said.

Company could pay

Alternately, Port Dolphin could be charged for any increased cost, suggested state Rep. Bill Galvano, who said his staff is beginning to analyze the project now that the legislative session has ended.

"The concern is not to negatively impact the Island communities environmentally or from a tourism perspective," he said, adding that he may organize a town hall meeting on the project, which caught many officials unaware.

When port authority members, who also sit as the Manatee County Commission, inquired about the project last week, McClash responded that the port director is aware of the county’s concerns and that the county attorney’s office is coordinating strategy during the negotiations.

"I guarantee that those concerns are being addressed," he said. "We would rather have staff work with them outside of a public forum."

In contrast, McClash suggested that Port Dolphin should have done a better job of informing the public about its project.

"The biggest disappointment so far with Dolphin is that Gulfstream did a good job to resolve things before they reached an adversarial position," McClash said, while Port Dolphin "decided to take a path that was a little different than the one we encouraged them to take."

He encouraged Port Dolphin officials to hold public meetings to address concerns about the environment, fishing impacts and other issues.

"We encourage them to get back and work with the public as we encourage all our partners to do," he said.

McDonald pledged to emphasize the need for public involvement in ongoing negotiations.

When the Gulfstream pipeline was in the planning stages in the 1990s, the company invited representatives from environmental groups to public meetings and shared details about its project, said Arlene Flisik, conservation chair of the Manatee County Audubon Society.

As a result, Gulfstream, Port Manatee and Audubon worked as partners to transform a spoil island off Port Manatee into a $7.3 million, 60-acre bird sanctuary.

"I assumed they (Port Dolphin) would be doing the same thing," she said.

Other pipeline problems

Several groups are scrambling to learn about Port Dolphin’s proposal before the June 2 deadline for public comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement released in April by the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Maritime Administration, which have the initial permitting authority over the project.

Numerous other federal and state agency permits also would be necessary for the project to materialize.

While spills, leaks, fires and warm water discharges are of concern, several organizations cite the location of the pipe as their main concern, including the Maitland-based Save the Manatee Club.

"We want to make sure those pipes aren’t laid over a seagrass bed," which are feeding grounds for manatees and important nurseries for aquatic life, Science and Conservation Director Katie Tripp said.

While Gulf water will be used to cool tanker engines and will be discharged back into the Gulf at warmer temperatures, she said that manatees – which are attracted to warm water outflows in the wintertime – typically stay closer to shore than the proposed port and probably would not be significantly impacted.

However, the cooling system is of concern because the intake of Gulf water will entrap marine life, said Suzanne Cooper, principal planner with the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council’s Agency on Bay Management, whose Natural Resources/Environmental Impact Review Committee heard a presentation by Port Dolphin last week.

The most significant unanswered question is why Port Dolphin needs to build its own pipeline when Gulfstream’s pipeline is available for them to tap into, she said.

"Gulfstream says there is capacity in their line," she said, which is an open access pipeline, while Port Dolphin’s proposal is to build its own proprietary pipeline.

Gulfstream has filed comments with the U.S. Coast Guard objecting to the proposed Port Dolphin pipeline route and Port Dolphin’s proposal to connect with Gulfstream’s onshore pipeline, suggesting instead that Port Dolphin tap Gulfstream’s pipeline offshore for safety and environmental reasons.

The construction of the proposed pipeline could impact hard bottom communities of marine animals, including corals and sponges, Cooper said.

According to the project’s impact statement, 66 acres of benthic habitat would be permanently lost and 234 acres of bottom-dwelling benthic communities would experience "minor to moderate short-term and long-term adverse impacts" during construction.

"We have seen no mitigation plan," Cooper said, adding that the group is compiling its questions and will request that it be involved in the permit review stage of the project.

Effects on fishing

The proposed pipeline could affect commercial and recreational fishing because of its impacts on marine life, said Jeff Rester, habitat coordinator with the joint habitat program of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council and the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission.

"There are some concerns over the project due to the installation of a pipeline through hard bottom habitat and seagrass," said Rester, who is also preparing to file comments on the project by the June 2 deadline.

"The impact on the hard bottom habitat affects biological resources."

In addition, the tanker engine cooling system intake could cause a significant loss of eggs and larvae in addition to small marine creatures, he said.

"The whole idea of it overwhelms me," said Don Chaney, conservation chair for the Sierra Club’s Sarasota-Manatee chapter and a member of the Healthy Gulf Coalition, who, like many others, is still learning about the project. "It’s incredible to think they could do it."

Public comments invited before June 2

Comments on the proposed Port Dolphin project should be sent to the Federal Docket Management Facility before June 2 by one of the following methods:

• Mail or delivery to the Federal Docket Management Facility, Department of Transportation, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. 20590
• Phone: 202-366-9329
• Fax: 202-493-2251
• E-mail from Web-site: www.regulations.gov. Enter USCG–2007–28532 in the "search" field, then click on "send a comment or submission."

Submissions should include name, address and docket number USCG–2007–28532.

Faxed or hand-delivered submissions must be unbound, no larger than 81⁄2 by 11 inches and suitable for copying and electronic scanning.

All submissions will be posted without changes at www.regulations.gov and will include all personal information provided.

ANNA MARIA - Ripple effects from the proposed Port Dolphin pipeline have prompted the county to postpone a meeting on including the city in the planned 2012 beach renourishment.

City officials had invited Manatee County commissioners to a luncheon May 30 with plans to lobby the county to include the city in that renourishment project.

Mayor Fran Barford said Charlie Hunsicker called to postpone the meeting until at least November or December.

In a memo to Barford, Hunsicker advises that the city needs to be aware of the proposed Port Dolphin project.

"I encourage you and your staff to be familiar with the Port Dolphin LLC proposal and consider whether you wish to support Manatee County in raising concerns about the proposal and its adverse effect upon a continuing and economically viable beach renourishment project for Anna Maria Island," Hunsicker said.

The Port Dolphin LLC project is in the formal regulatory process. The private for-profit company is proposing a deep-water transfer port to bring natural gas into the state via an underwater pipeline through the Gulf coming ashore at Port Manatee.

"This pipeline passes very near beach compatible sand sources we have relied upon to maintain the beaches of Anna Maria Island," Hunsicker said.

Hunsicker, the county’s conservation lands manager, said his office is playing catch up.

"Although a project scoping process for this project was coordinated with state and federal regulatory agencies, beginning almost a year ago, we were not aware of the impacts of the proposal to near-shore compatible sand sources until the formal release of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement in April 2008," Hunsicker said.

While disappointed about the postponement, Barford said she understands the urgency of the county’s efforts.

As it stands now, Anna Maria would be left out of the 2012 renourishment project. Beach renourishment is funded by tax dollars generated by the tourist industry. County officials have said the city doesn’t generate enough tourist tax dollars to be included.

Including Anna Maria in the project would force the county to take out a line of credit – something county commissioners don’t want to do.

If the proposed pipeline were approved, Manatee County would have to use a compatible sand source much farther from shore, which would result in greatly increased costs for renourishment.

The U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Maritime Administration have identified several potential hazards of the proposed Port Dolphin Energy Liquefied Natural Gas Deepwater Port in its newly-released Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

Among the concerns are spills, explosions, increased water and air pollution and impacts on marine life, including fish, manatees, dolphins, whales and sea turtles.

Public comments will be accepted on the statement until June 2. A final version of the statement is due in mid-July, followed by a final public hearing later this summer.

Spills

In its two-volume statement, the Coast Guard identifies 11 potential scenarios in which liquid natural gas might accidentally be released into the environment: vessel collision, shipboard mechanical system failure, fire, gas release at processing equipment, severe weather, structural failure of the vessel, grounding, natural phenomena, mooring system failure, dropped objects and aviation accident.

Intentional attacks also were considered.

The worst industry accident listed in the report was in 1944 in Cleveland, where 128 people died after liquid natural gas leaked from a tank and formed a vapor cloud that surrounded streets and the storm sewer system, then ignited.

In 1973, 37 people died in Staten Island when the interior of an empty natural gas storage tank caught fire during repairs.

The most recent incident was in 2002, when a ship carrying liquid natural gas collided with a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered submarine, the U.S.S. Oklahoma City, causing a leak in the ship’s hull, but no injuries or deaths.

Overall, the report ranked liquid natural gas shipping as relatively safe.

"During the past 45 years, there have been approximately 100,000 liquid natural gas carrier voyages covering more than 235 million miles. There is no report of any accident involving a liquid natural gas carrier underway that has resulted in an unintentional release of liquid natural gas cargo. Over the life of the industry, 16 cargo transfer incidents worldwide have resulted in limited gas spills with some damage, but no cargo fires have occurred."

A spill of the supercooled liquid natural gas could freeze marine life in the water, but since liquid natural gas does not dissolve in water, the time frame would be limited to the period before the gas was boiled off, according to the statement.

Spills also could kill sea grass, which fish, manatees and sea turtles feed on.

Explosions

"The industry is not without incidents, but it has maintained an enviable safety record," according to the statement. "Vapors are flammable only in concentrations of 5 to 15 percent natural gas when mixed with air. Liquid natural gas is neither flammable nor explosive. Natural gas will not explode in an unconfined environment."

Water quality

"A combination of long- and short-term minor adverse impacts on water quality would be expected" due to sediment being stirred up during installation and operation of the port, according to the statement.

"During operations, cooling and ballast water discharges would have several impacts on water quality near the port, including increased water temperature, increased turbidity and decreased dissolved oxygen content. Spills of hazardous substances, such as hydrocarbons (e.g. petroleum, oils and lubricants), might result in short-term, minor adverse impacts on water quality."

Air quality

"Short-term direct minor adverse impacts on air quality would be expected" from equipment during construction.

Emissions from ongoing port operations would have a "long-term direct minor adverse impact on air quality during the life of the project."

The product itself poses risks, too. "Since natural gas is a fossil fuel, combustion of natural gas contributes to the generation of greenhouse gasses."

Marine life

"Minor to moderate short-term adverse impacts and minor long-term adverse impacts on biological resources could occur as a result of the project," including impacts on vegetation, wetlands and marine organisms.

A system that would take Gulf of Mexico water into the ship for cooling and expel hot water would adversely affect plankton, and could cause "direct, adverse, minor impacts on biological resources from the impingement or entrainment of marine organisms," including gag grouper.

In addition, 234 acres of bottom-dwelling benthic communities would experience "minor to moderate short-term and long-term adverse impacts" during construction.

"Benthic communities would be expected to recover quickly by recolonization from surrounding communities of similar organisms," according to the statement, but 66 acres of benthic substrata would be lost permanently.

The endangered smalltooth sawfish also could be affected.

Manatees

"Increases in vessel traffic could increase the potential for collisions with federally listed marine mammals, thereby increasing the occurrence of serious injuries or mortality. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has consistently concluded that a ‘take’ of a single manatee would jeopardize the continued existence of the species, and vessel collisions have been identified as a major source of mortality for this species."

Dolphins

The dolphins that the port is named for are listed as potentially impacted by collision, noise, entanglement and water turbidity as result of operations.

Dolphins would be able to outswim the seawater intake into the port’s cooling system, according to the statement.according to the statement.

Whales

Blue, sperm, fin, humpback and sei whales "have the potential to be affected by collision and noise anywhere on the high seas where they occur in these species’ habitats," according to the statement. They are all endangered species.

Sea turtles

All five species of sea turtles that swim in Florida waters would be impacted – the threatened loggerhead and green and the endangered hawksbill, leatherback and Kemp’s ridley.

Lighting from the construction of the port could cause short-term, minor, direct, adverse effects on turtles, which are attracted to light, according to the statement, which adds that the port is eight miles farther from shore than humans or turtles can see at night, so lights would not disorient turtles hatching on shore.

Sea turtles, even hatchlings, would be able to outswim the seawater intake into the port’s cooling system, according to the statement, which lists other potential impacts on sea turtles such as collision, noise, entanglement, turbidity and consumption of marine construction debris.

Birds

The Audubon’s crested caracara, piping plover, wood stork and roseate terns are listed as possibly dwelling within several miles of the port.

Pollution

The port, which would be within 93 miles of the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge and 152 miles from Everglades National Park, would cause "increases in vessel traffic, noise, marine debris and port lighting."

Geological resources (sand)

"Minor direct adverse impacts from port and offshore pipeline installation would be expected. Impacts would be localized and short-term. Subsea sediments are the primary geological resource that would be affected by the project. Approximately 50 acres onshore would be temporarily impacted by the pipeline right of way."

Commercial fishing

"Minor long-term impacts on commercial fishing, recreational fishing and boating could occur within the safety zone that would be established around the port. Commercial fishing would be temporarily excluded from the vicinity of construction activities for approximately 11 months during construction," potentially affecting 2,677 commercial vessels registered in Manatee, Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.

Recreational activities

"Short- and long-term minor adverse impacts on recreational fishing, boating and other water dependent uses would result from construction and operation of the port due to visual impacts and restricted access within the safety zone."

Navigation

Approximately 1,800 trips to and from shore are anticipated during the 11-month construction period. Operational activities are anticipated to generate approximately 938 trips annually.

Aesthetics

"Offshore construction of the port would be visible to recreational boaters, residents and visitors."

View the PDF

The clock is ticking.

Port Dolphin expects more than a dozen permits from nearly as many federal and state agencies to be secured by the end of 2009, spokesman German Castro said, with construction beginning in 2010 and operations starting in 2011.

Besides the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Maritime Administration, other permitting agencies include the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is already considering an application for the land-based portion of the pipeline, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which notified Port Dolphin last year that it would not issue a permit for the offshore portion of the project because of its potential adverse effects on the Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve. As a result, Port Dolphin proposed the new offshore route through Manatee County’s sand mining area.

Other agencies which must sign off on the project include the Florida Department of Transportation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of the Interior’s Mineral Management Service and the Florida Coastal Management Program.

Manatee County has little authority other than to consider a building permit for the land-based portion of the project, Conservation Lands Management Department Director Charlie Hunsicker said.

The Manatee County Commission, which also sits as the Manatee County Port Authority, also may have some leverage, von Hahmann said.

The Coast Guard and Maritime Administration process is wrapping up. June 2 is the deadline for public comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The Final Environmental Impact Statement is due in mid-July, followed by a final public hearing in mid-August and a decision 90 days later.

Gov. Charlie Crist has veto power over the plan.

"It’s later in the game than it should have been," Hunsicker said about Manatee County’s involvement in the process. "But now is the time to comment and object."