Title
Calling on the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to take action to prevent the transportation of liquified natural gas through the City of Philadelphia; and further calling on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and/or the Army Corps of Engineers to perform an environmental impact statement of the proposed docking facility in Gibbstown, New Jersey.
Body
WHEREAS, New Fortress Energy is planning the overland transport of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), also known as liquid methane, by truck on public highways and by rail car on existing railways from a yet-to-be-completed liquefaction plant in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania, to a proposed LNG export terminal in Gibbstown, New Jersey (Gibbstown Logistics Center) at a site located approximately three miles downriver from the southernmost Philadelphia City limit and ten miles from Center City Philadelphia; and
WHEREAS, In December 2019, New Fortress Energy subsidiary Energy Transport Solutions received a Special Permit from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) for the transport of LNG in rail cars designed 50 years ago and never used for LNG transport; and
WHEREAS, The transport of LNG has unique safety hazards, exposing those along these particular truck and rail routes to unprecedented and unjustifiable risk. An LNG release boils furiously into a flammable vapor cloud 620 times larger than the storage container. An unignited ground-hugging vapor cloud can move far distances, and exposure to the vapor can cause extreme freeze burns. If in an enclosed space, it asphyxiates, causing death. If ignited, the fire is inextinguishable. No federal field research has shown how far the vapor cloud can move, so, in the most recent serious Plymouth, Washington LNG fire, they evacuated a two-mile radius; and
WHEREAS, Spillage of LNG into water presents a hazardous situation where the water quickly transfers heat to the liquid methane, causing it to expand with explosive ...
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