Environmental group oppose plans to build LNG facility

The environmental group, reEarth, has spoken out against plans by the government to construct a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility scheduled to be built by Shell North America “in the heavily polluted industrial area at Clifton Pier”.
In a release on Sunday, the group’s president, Sam Duncombe, said the deal is “wrong on every level” because LNG is counter to the global move toward renewable energy.
“It lags far behind the global trend of switching to renewables, is slated to be built at a site that needs urgent environmental remediation and is being spearheaded by those who have an interest in keeping The Bahamas dependent on fossil fuels for as long as possible,” he said/
“It’s the perfect storm of environmental abuse that will not only affect the present, but future generations of Bahamians.It is honestly hard to imagine how a deal could be worse. This is a case of wrong time, wrong place, wrong people.”
Duncombe said while the government has promised to implement more renewable energy into the country’s national power grid, it recently agreed to a deal for an LNG facility that can accommodate different types of fuels.
“In other words, this facility will simply add another fossil fuel, liquefied natural gas, to the two heavily polluting fuels that are already used at the Clifton power plant,” she said.
“Nothing is improving through this deal; things are actually getting worse. Why would the government agree to such a deal? Why not seek to build a facility that used LNG in conjunction with solar or wind power, for example? Or better still, a combination of biodiesel, solar and tidal?”
According to a report in the Nassau Guardian, executives from Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) said that the state of BPL’s financials will not allow for electricity bills to drastically decrease in the short term.
It adds that the government recently completed a retaining wall at Clifton Pier, in an effort to keep oil that has seeped into the ground over many years from continuing to escape into the ocean.
However, reEarth says “Clifton Bay is an enormously delicate and important marine ecosystem, and the land near the industrial plants is home to several small communities.”
“For years, the ground and water has been saturated with toxic substances. There could not be a worse location for this facility. Clifton does not need another power plant. It desperately and urgently needs to be closed off and fully remediated before further environmental and human suffering occur.”
Duncombe said the deal – amounts to a reward for those who have failed to prevent environmental pollution for years.