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LNG plans challenged via NAFTA
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20050504-9...
Environmental groups try new tactic in Baja
By Diane Lindquist
May 4, 2005
Seven U.S. and Mexican environmental groups filed a challenge yesterday under the North American Free Trade Agreement to ChevronTexaco's plan to build
a liquefied natural gas receiving terminal near the Coronado Islands.
They accuse Mexico of failing to fully evaluate the impact on bird, plant and sea life, especially on one of the North American coastline's largest
colonies of Xantus' murrelets.
"The issues were not getting much response from the Mexican government," said Serge Dedina, co-director of San Diego-based Wildcoast.
He said Mexico's environmental agency, known as Semarnat, has not followed the approval process required by law to ensure the protection of the
country's natural resources. If, for instance, a public hearing was held on the project, environmental groups were unaware of it, Dedina said.
"Semarnat has become a pro-development agency rather than an environmental agency," he said.
Officials of the agency, Secretaria del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, did not respond to telephone or e-mail inquiries asking for comment.
A ChevronTexaco representative also could not be reached for comment.
Filing a petition with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which was created in 1994 under a NAFTA side agreement and is headquartered in
Montreal, is a new tactic for critics of LNG terminals proposed in Baja California.
Opponents of Sempra Energy's LNG project at Costa Azul north of Ensenada have filed action in federal and state courts in Mexico to try to stop
development of the receiving terminal.
Sempra and ChevronTexaco have been granted environmental permits. Sempra contends that a federal suspension of the Semarnat permit has been resolved,
and it has broken ground on the project.
No action apparently has been taken against a third proposed Baja California facility ? a floating storage and regasification unit about five miles
off Rosarito Beach being developed by Terminales y Almacenes Maritimos de Mexico with Moss Maritime. That project received its Semarnat permit about
two weeks ago.
All three projects are expected to provide natural gas to Baja California and Southern California.
Under the NAFTA rules, the environmental commission can hold hearings on the disputed issues surrounding the ChevronTexaco LNG terminal, but it cannot
stop the project.
Dedina said the groups are using the NAFTA process to highlight the issues involved in the dispute. "The NAFTA panel will be a good forum to get a
hearing so that Mexico will pay attention," he said.
The petition was prepared by Jay Tutchton, the director of the University of Denver Environmental Law Clinical Partnership.
"If the Commission for Environmental Cooperation does not prevent such a blatant example of a project that has fled across a border to avoid
environmental laws, I don't know what purpose it fulfills other than to greenwash environmentally destructive free trade," Tutchton said.
Other groups filing the challenge are Greenpeace Mexico; the Los Angeles Audubon Society; the Center for Biological Diversity; the Grupo de Ecologia y
Conservaci?n de las Islas; the American Bird Conservancy; and Shaye Wolf, a seabird biologist at the University of California Santa Cruz.
They contend that the light and activity on ChevronTexaco's $650 million project, to be located on a platform about 600 yards from the southernmost
and largest of the Coronado Islands, will harm the largest known colony of the endangered Xantus' murrelet, a small black-and-white seabird.
The bird's population is estimated at less than 10,000, with more than half of that nesting at the Coronados.
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Environmentalists take fight against planned gas terminal in Mexico to NAFTA commission
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/05/04/business/news/20_...
By: MARK STEVENSON
May 3, 2005
MEXICO CITY -- Environmentalists filed a challenge with the NAFTA Commission for Environmental Cooperation on Tuesday against a U.S. liquefied natural
gas import terminal planned for a site off Mexico's Pacific coast.
Greenpeace Mexico and six other U.S. and Mexican organizations accused Mexico of failing to fully evaluate the possible impact of the plant near Baja
California's Coronado Island on an endangered seabird known as Xantus' murrelet.
"The Commission for Environmental Cooperation should consider this complaint, because this is a species of bird that migrates and involves all three
(NAFTA) countries," Arturo Moreno of Greenpeace Mexico told reporters in Mexico City.
Isla Coronado is home to the largest known colony of the small black-and-white seabird, and Moreno said it could be harmed by the lights, activity and
chlorinated water discharges at a plant located just 600 yards from the island's shore.
The bird's population is estimated to be less than 10,000, with more than half of that nesting at Isla Coronado.
The other groups filing the complaint include the American Bird Conservancy, the Los Angeles Audubon Society and the Pacific Environment and Resource
Center.
The environmental commission, based in Montreal, Canada, was created under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, the United
States and Canada. While the commission has the power to carry out an investigation of whether member countries have failed to enforce their
environmental rules, it cannot make recommendations or order them to comply.
Moreno claims oil companies are treating Baja California as their "back yard," with gas plants and electrical power plants located in Mexico that
mainly serve the California market.
U.S. energy giant ChevronTexaco Corp. already has the main federal approvals necessary for the proposed terminal at the uninhabited Isla Coronado,
about 8 miles off the Pacific coast near Tijuana.
Greenpeace says Mexico's Environment Department failed to gather sufficient scientific information about impacts on the birds and failed to properly
catalog plants and wildlife at the islands.
Liquefied natural gas is transported by being cooled and condensed into a liquid form. It is "regasified" at receiving terminals, where it is pumped
from ships and stored until it can be converted back into a gaseous form and delivered via pipeline to customers.
That regasification process leaves residual chlorine, which can kill off marine life.
San Diego-based Sempra Energy also is planning a liquefied plant off the Baja California coast about 14 miles north of Ensenada, and already has
awarded construction contracts.
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