Ruppersberger: LNG Facility at Sparrows Point Officially ‘Dead in the Water’

(Washington, DC) – Congressman C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) today applauded the demise of a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility at Sparrows Point after years of community opposition. Virginia-based AES Corporation has filed a motion with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission indicating it has decided to vacate its proposed facility and pipeline in Baltimore County.

 

“Today, LNG at Sparrows Point is officially dead in the water,” Congressman Ruppersberger said. “While I remain concerned about our country’s reliance on foreign energy sources, I have said from the very beginning that this was the wrong proposal at the wrong place and at the wrong time. It provided absolutely no benefit to the community in which it was to be built.”

 

Congressman Ruppersberger contacted every agency involved in the approval process and urged them to deny the application, including FERC, the Army Corp of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Coast Guard. 

 

Since January 2006, he expressed concerns that LNG, a hazardous fuel that can explode when ignited, posed a significant security risk to nearby neighborhoods as well as motorists on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The proposed site was less than two miles from homes in Dundalk, Turner’s Station, and Edgemere and LNG tankers would have to travel beneath the Bay Bridge to reach the Sparrows Point facility. Moreover, AES was unwilling to pay for new security procedures, leaving Maryland taxpayers to foot the bill even though the natural gas would be pumped out-of-state.

 

The proposal also left unanswered questions related to impacts on endangered and threatened species that live in environmentally-sensitive areas of the Chesapeake Bay.a