Manila's 'resounding no' to LNG
By Matt Kapko
Eye Reporter
The Arcata Eye
March 16, 2004

If anyone in Manila likes the idea of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in their oceanfront community, they didn’t make it known last Thursday.

The Manila Community Services District held a special meeting then to send a letter opposing the LNG project that is being considered for Humboldt Bay.

The Board of Directors is unanimously opposed to the LNG proposal, but also disappointed that Calpine, the company making the proposal, is attempting to enter into an Exclusive Right to Negotiate (ERTN) with the Eureka City Council.

One person who is extremely concerned with the LNG project is Chuck Dewitt, a member of the Samoa Peninsula Fire District’s Board of Directors. Dewitt said he has been in close contact with Calpine and many local politicians regarding this project since it was announced more than a year ago.

He said that Bechtel will probably build facility and that Halliburton could be involved as well. “There won’t be that many jobs,” Dewitt said. “We don’t need it. Bush and Cheney decided they need it.”
Director Linda Lee said she wants Manila to send a “resounding no” on the LNG proposal.

“The hugeness of it degrades our natural environment,” said Beverly Prosser, the Community Center Coordinator. She said the site being considered for the LNG project is the third largest concentration of the Humboldt Wallflower, an endangered species.

“I think that the big problem is that it moves along at all. It doesn’t look good. It looks like it’s moving forward,” Tim Dellas, the board’s president, said. He warned that if Eureka obtains an ERTN with Calpine, the community’s options for dissent would be limited.

“We reject the feasibility study concept on its face,” the board’s letter reads.

Its main concerns with the proposal include “a substantial degradation to the quality of life in our community,” and the “potential for disaster.”

The letter also cites the negative impacts that would occur with “intensified levels of security needed for such an operation.”

The board is asking the Eureka City Council to refrain from entering into an ERTN with Calpine.

The letter is being sent to the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, Eureka City Council and the Humboldt Bay Harbor Recreation and Conservation District.