Over 60 individuals, citizen councils, state/municipal offices and agencies weighed in with environmental concerns to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission before the comment period on the Alaska LNG project closed December 4.
Special Oil and Gas Assistant Larry Persily with the Kenai Peninsula Borough says it makes sense that a lot of the comments received dealt with impacts on the Kenai Peninsula.
Persily: “Half of the value or almost half of the value of this entire project would be built on the Kenai Peninsula, specifically the liquefaction plant, storage tanks, marine terminal at Nikiski so certainly the biggest impact not just during construction but over decades of operations are going to be felt in Nikiski.”
He detailed the two topics that garnered the most input from the peninsula…
Persily: “Traffic, which is already a problem enough on the Kenai Spur Highway. And home values or property values I should say. Not for the property owners who would be bought out and would move to make room for the LNG project but for residents who are not part of the LNG plant site and whose property is outside of that fence line, the people who are going to remain are concerned about property values, as would anybody anywhere in the world, not just Nikiski.”
Fishing was another hot topic in the Kenai Peninsula’s comments.
As we’ve previously reported, the Kenai River Special Management Area Board submitted their concerns about the increase impact on Kenai River fishing alongside the United Cook Inlet Drift Association’s who represents 570 salmon drift gillnet holders in Cook Inlet.
UCIDA expressed a desire “to see a comprehensive plan for safety and cooperation between drift gillnetters fishing for salmon in Cook Inlet and the 15 to 20 LNG carriers a month expected at the Nikiski terminal.”
Persily says he took time to summarize the comments received by FERC since each individual comment must be downloaded separately. Click here for Persily’s full summary.