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Kenai Peninsula Borough comments to FERC
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Kenai Peninsula Borough filed comments with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Oct. 11 responding to comments filed by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough on Sept. 14.
The Alaska Gasline Development Corp.’s application to FERC has Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula as the preferred location for the Alaska LNG Project’s liquefaction and shipping facilities.
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough has argued for a Port MacKenzie location as what it calls the “optimum” site for the liquefaction facility. In its comments the Kenai Peninsula Borough says Port MacKenzie is not an “optimum” alternative site because it is being developed for other activities, with the MatSu Borough marketing the location for those other activities, including the shipment site for timber export and as the terminus of an extension of the Alaska Railroad.
The Kenai Peninsula Borough told FERC that the Nikiski site proposed by AGDC “is not encumbered by timber, rail line or other development,” and is a mile south of the Kenai Liquefied Natural Gas Plant which exported LNG for 46 years.
KPB told FERC the Port MacKenzie site would lengthen the shipping route, result in more ice mitigation, require significant ongoing dredging in the Knik Arm Shoal, result in more whale strikes as it is within the Cook Inlet Beluga Critical Habitat Area 1 and is not significantly different from the Mat-Su Borough’s previously provided option 1 “that Mat-Su Borough has admitted presents significant challenges.”
KPB also said AGDC was given the mandate by the state of Alaska to develop the project, “including the mandate to select a site for the project.”
AGDC is owned by and is an instrumentality of the state, making the site selection the preferred location of the state.
The Mat-Su Borough said FERC “should defer to the selection of the Nikiski site by the delegate of the State of Alaska, unless there are clear and overwhelming environmental, social or safety reasons for rejecting the site - which there are not.”
Mat-Su response The Matanuska-Susitna Borough responded to AGDC Oct. 2 comments on Oct. 16, telling FERC it believes AGDC has not provided FERC staff with the information necessary to do a comparative analysis of the Nikiski and Port MacKenzie sites.
The borough provided a list of information which it believes FERC should require AGDC to provide, arguing that AGDC has not performed “a through examination of the siting and configuration options at Port MacKenzie,” but has only analyzed two sites.
And, the borough told FERC, it first had an opportunity to review AGDC/s analysis of Port MacKenzie after AGDC’s July 13 submission; AGDC, not the borough, is delaying the process by “its continued resistance to performing an adequate analysis of Port MacKenzie as an alternative site for the proposed liquefaction facility.” - KRISTEN NELSON
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