Save Passamaquoddy Bay
Alliance to Protect the Quoddy Region
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Quoddy Bay LNG, Downeast LNG, and Calais LNG
all seem to be competing to make the most ludicrous statements.
See our other pages, Downeast LNG said it… & Calais LNG said it…
President Donald Smith of Quoddy Bay LNG , after Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Tribal Government ended the business relationship after the Ground Lease expired, eight months after FERC dismissed the project on 2008 October 17 —
Top“[T]he outlook for the project “is still very positive.”
— "Sipayik council votes to end project with Quoddy Bay LNG" — The Quoddy Tides, 2009 Jun 12.
Webmaster’s Comments: First, kicked out by FERC. Now this. “Failed” is a more apt description for this project.
Top
Donald Smith, as quoted in "Rebound," by editor Michaela Cavallaro, Mainebiz biweekly, 2005 June 13 issue —
"After the second or third bottle of wine, the lightbulb went off in my head.”
— referring to the idea of using a no-storage-tank method of importing LNG at Split Rock, a ceremonial site at the Sipayik Reservation.
WEBMASTER'S COMMENT:We imagine that Smith's bragging about his alcohol-inspired idea won't make the positive impression on residents of Sipayik and readers that he seems to think it will have.
TopDon Smith, Quoddy Bay LLC & Smith Cogeneration —
"I wouldn't want the damned thing in my backyard, either, but I was sent to do a job, and I'm going to do it."
— told by Smith to multiple area residents, 2005 March.
Adam Wilson, Quoddy Bay LNG's deputy project manager, stating that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) "erred" when it told the US Appeals Court that its lease approval covered the entire project, also said —
Top"We're trying to rectify that right now. We've drafted an amendment to the ground lease that will clarify what the BIA approval was and what we expect it to be and we've just got to work out a few minor details and then give it to the justice department."
— "Passamaquoddy group to appeal dismissal of LNG lawsuit," Indian Country Today, 2008 Aug 29.
Webmaster's Comments: Adam Wilson and Quoddy Bay LNG claim they now represent the US Department of Interior's BIA? — and they're going to instruct the US Department of Justice on how to defend the case against the BIA?
Hubris and impropriety abound at Quoddy Bay LNG.
TopPaul Martin of TRC, the environmental consulting company working for Quoddy Bay LNG —
"When you're up close to the facilities they seem relatively big. When you are further away from the facility, they diminish in the viewshed, so that they aren't so apparent."
— WQDY-FM, "Quoddy Bay info meeting draws international crowd," 2007 May 23
Brian Smith (Quoddy Bay LLC) —
"We’re eager to provide FERC with the additional information so that they have the opportunity to review the requested information before our formal application."
— "Quoddy Bay LNG Providing Additional Data to FERC," 2006 August 28
WEBMASTER'S COMMENTS: Quoddy Bay LLC is providing what they're calling "additional information" to FERC, not because it will give FERC an "opportunity," but because Quoddy Bay failed to provide the required information previously, and they can't complete their pre-filing process without furnishing this information. Quoddy Bay LLC's ineptitude has set back their project by at least two months.
TopBrian Smith (Quoddy Bay LLC) —
"[W]e are very close to a successful end to the pre-filing process...."
—
"Quoddy Bay LNG Report to the Community #2," 2006 August (late August)
WEBMASTER'S COMMENTS: FERC lists a plethora of requirement failures in Quoddy Bay LLC's Draft Resource Reports, pointing out Quoddy Bay's lack of competence. Read the 2006 August 24 docket response filed to Quoddy Bay LLC's prefiling.
FERC has set Quoddy Bay LLC's potential formal application back by at least two months.
Brian Smith (Quoddy Bay LLC), in a letter to the editor —
"Yellow Wood Associates specializes in working against economic development and have no background in LNG or energy facilities."
— "Quoddy Bay LNG helps," [letter to the editor], Bangor Daily News, 2006 August 10.
WEBMASTER'S COMMENTS: Brian Smith apparently hadn't researched Yellow Wood Associates before writing his letter, or he'd have known that Yellow Wood Associates is in the economic development business — oops!
Smith's criticism of Yellow Wood for having no LNG background exposes Smith's and Quoddy Bay LLC's hypocrisy, since Brian Smith and Donald Mitchell Smith have no LNG background, themselves — oops, again!
TopBrian Smith (Quoddy Bay LLC), at the 2006 July 13 FERC Site Visit —
"'Pure methane burns too hot,' therefore, we'll add nitrogen to the gas."
WEBMASTER'S COMMENTS: Smith also stated that Quoddy Bay LLC would be importing "hot" LNG. "Hotness" refers to the calorific content of natural gas, when compared to pure methane — pure methane can't be "hot"; therefore, pure methane doesn't require the addition of an inert, non-burning gas, like nitrogen. It's only when other hotter-burning fuel gasses, such as butane, propane, or ethane are present in large quantities in the LNG or natural gas that it's classified as "hot" and nitrogen is required to "cool it down."
In the 1980s, the U.S. Coast Guard sponsored LNG research at China Lake, concluding that unconfined "hot" LNG vapors can explode. [See the U.S. Coast Guard 2005 Fall edition of Proceedings, "LNG and Public Safety Issues: Summarizing current knowledge about potential worst-case consequences of LNG spills onto water" (PDF).] Brian Smith demonstrates that Quoddy Bay LLC is dangerously ignorant about its own business.
Brian Smith (Quoddy Bay LLC), to the Sunrise County Economic Council board of directors —
"It looks like we will be stuck being a major source of noxious emissions."
— "Possible $700M LNG plan includes jobs, tourism, noxious emissions," Bangor Daily News, 2006 April 19.
In the 2006 April 22-23 Bangor Daily News, they published a correction, indicating that Smith actually said "NOx" (referring to Nitrogen Oxides; NOx) instead of "noxious." See the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's inclusion of NOx as an unreduced and problematic air pollutant. (We thank the Bangor Daily News' correction for specifying which noxious pollutant Quoddy Bay LLC proposes to belch into Passamaquoddy Bay communities' air — and our lungs!)
TopBrian Smith (Quoddy Bay LLC), to the Sunrise County Economic Council board of directors —
"I'm not an expert on anything."
— "Possible $700M LNG plan includes jobs, tourism, noxious emissions," Bangor Daily News, 2006 April 19.
TopAccording to the LNGLawBlog of Washington, DC, lawfirm Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan, Brian Smith lied to the Eastport City Council when he stated —
"[Quoddy Bay LLC's project is under] strict guidelines that require FERC to deal with it within one year."
— "Quoddy Bay suggests “floating bridge” idea,"LNGLawBlog.com; Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan; Washington, DC, 2006 March 29.
COMMENTS QUOTED FROM LNGLawBlog: "LNGLawBlog notes that, unlike the Deepwater Port Act that governs offshore terminal proposals, the Natural Gas Act and FERC’s regulations do not limit the time period in which FERC must make a determination on an LNG terminal application."
Brian Smith (Quoddy Bay LLC), in response to an Eastport citizen's concern for an emergency route off of Moose Island (Eastport) —
"We have long considered the possibility or trying to help out with capital or matching funds or something like that for a permanent bridge [between Eastport and the mainland], and the [railroad] tracks." ..."The only problem we see with that is that we don't want our facility to be contingent on building that bridge."
— "Quoddy Bay LNG makes pitch to Eastport City Council," WQDY-FM, 2006 March 28.
WEBMASTER'S COMMENTS: Smith wants Eastport to approve his project, but doesn't want to commit to an emergency method of egress off the island. Smith's Harvard education apparently didn't include logic.
TopCary Weston, President of Sutherland Weston Marketing Communications, the PR firm now representing Quoddy Bay LLC —
"Webster's dictionary defines the word propaganda as '... ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to damage an opposing cause.'"
— "Propaganda told as fact" [Letter to the editor] — Bangor Daily News, Bangor, ME, 2006 January 16.
WEBMASTER'S COMMENTS: Webster's online dictionary also defines "propaganda" as...
"Information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause."
It's a humorous irony — in his condemnation of propaganda — that Cary Weston, makes his living by creating and disseminating propaganda. It seems that Cary Weston has a strong disdain for his own industry, making it all the better that he represents Quoddy Bay LLC.
TopBrian Smith —
"We are standing by our verbal agreement with the tribe. It is a spiritual agreement that we don't want to break." (bold emphasis added.)
— "Quoddy Bay promises jobs," The Quoddy Tides, 2005 August 12.
WEBMASTER'S COMMENTS: Brian Smith evidently hasn't even seen the nearly 100-page lease agreement between the company he represents and Pleasant Point Reservation. There's definitely nothing verbal or spiritual about it.
Brian Smith —
"We have land in Robbinston that is adequate for an LNG import facility, it's actually perfect ... except for the fact that it's right across from St. Andrews, a big resort community, and kind of on their face."
— "U.S. LNG proponent explores Maine options," New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal, 2005 July 27.
WEBMASTER'S COMMENTS: We're predicting that Brian Smith is about to discover an enormous glob of Canadian "egg" on his face.
In a 2005 July 18 Maine Public Radio interview, "Two LNG Developers Flesh Out Plans That Involve the Same Town," Quoddy Bay LLC's Brian Smith stated that they would be building an 8-mile underwater pipeline between their Split Rock LNG import terminal and their tank farm in Robbinston.
The next day, 2005 July 19, when Quoddy Bay's spokesman from Savvy Inc., Dennis Bailey, was asked to comment on the proposed underwater pipeline...
Dennis Bailey responded —
"What pipeline in the water?"
— Bangor Daily News, "LNG proposal stirs up community: Robbinston area residents wonder about impact on larger ecosystem,"