Statements on Dominion Cove Point LNG by Calvert County Residents

This pier project illustrates Dominion’s disregard for all types of communities. The oysters are not the only species at stake here. Scientists have known about the diversity of life on oyster bars since at least 1878 (Mobius, 1878). This pier destroys an ecosystem. When the state built this PUBLIC pier, it was designed to AVOID this natural oyster bar (NOB) that watermen harvest to this day. You CANNOT make a natural oyster bar. Nor can you mitigate the damage done to one by tossing a few oysters onto proposed artificial reefs elsewhere. These proposed artificial reefs are nothing more than construction debris dumped in the Bay per Dominion’s agreement with DNR through FERC. This pier destroys the hundreds of species that exist on the oyster bar as an intimate web of inter-dependencies that took thousands of years to establish and work collectively to clean the Chesapeake Bay.

This destruction of an ecosystem foreshadows the destruction to come with Dominion’s fracked gas refinery, whose far reaching tentacles of frack wells, pipelines and compressor stations, will add billions of tons of greenhouse gases, hundreds of tons of hazardous and carcinogenic air pollutants and contaminate the water and soil that ALL living things rely upon for existence.

–Linda Morin, resident of Lusby, MD and middle-school science teacher

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We have lived in Calvert County over twelve years. Seven years ago, we bought a house a few streets from the Cove Point terminal. At that time, it was being used for occasional imports. We had no reason to think it would ever be otherwise.

We have two daughters, aged twelve and nine. We chose to make our home in Calvert County and selected our house to ensure that they could get outside and appreciate nature. We also wanted the beach access, which is hard to get in Lusby. We have lived here very happily for the past seven years. Our life has been exactly what we dreamed of. I feel this place is a real gem. I fear the export terminal is going to crush my dream I had for my family. I am afraid that my dream home is just going to be shattered.

I am concerned that the noise from the terminal will make life unbearable and drive away the wildlife that gives us so much joy. More than that, I’m terrified of what could happen. I am full of anxiety and stress for my family.  We’re in a blast zone. We’ll be instantly incinerated in the case of a blast.

The so-called ‘opportunities for input’ were a total waste of time. Dominion and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission just steamrolled over us. It felt like they were just humoring us. They have exerted their power and dominance over us. They can just come in and do whatever they want.

I don’t want to sell our home. We’ve worked so hard for it. We want our children to have the security of a home, a place they can come back to years from now. And even if we did try to sell it, who wants to live next to a natural gas export terminal? The price we could probably get for our house would be so low I don’t think we could even afford to move.

Already, at the three construction sites (the terminal and Offsite Areas A and B) they’ve brutalized the earth. Every time I see them I get a knot in my stomach, and I have to drive past all three of them every day. It just breaks my heart.

–Amber Tamburri, resident of Lusby

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I am present to protest the building of a fracked gas refinery in this county.  It will house 410,000 gallons of propane, 14.6 billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas, 25,000 gallons of aqueous ammonia—all of which threaten the health, safety, and lives of residents. Air, ground, and water will be polluted with carcinogens and neurotoxins. This project has been given approval without a QRA [quantitative risk assessment]–!

I also must protest as a social worker–

Social work is a practice based profession and academic discipline that promotes social change, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people.  Thus, I am bound by our ethics to speak against the building of this refinery. Empowerment must include citizen participation and thorough assessment before any project that could effect the welfare and lives of citizens is built in a community.  In this case, no such assessment or participation has happened.

–Yvonne Micheli, resident of Calvert County, MD

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We must begin to separate the wheat from the chaff of what jobs we welcome into our community.  There is a point when our Commissioners, the gatekeepers, become the Judas of our stories, even if the dollars are earmarked for the poor.

If it will cost our county the same price as the Fukushima plant in Japan (who are now willing to put American lands at risk for their energy), it is a plan that should be fought tooth and nail.

–Brenda Songy, resident of Leonardtown, MD