CG has plan to secure Mass. LNG shipments - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

CG has plan to secure Mass. LNG shipments

BOSTON — Coast Guard officials say they’ve developed a security plan to allow the safe passage of tankers carrying liquefied natural gas from Yemen through the Port of Boston.

Coast Guard Capt. John Healey said the shipments, set to begin at the end of the month, have been under review for nearly a year.

Healey, captain of the port, declined to give details of the security measures but said he will decide on a case-by-case basis whether to allow each ship to continue to an offloading area in densely populated Everett, Mass.

Tankers filled with the potentially explosive gas have become a cause for concern after al-Qaida’s offshoot in Yemen claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day attempt to bomb a passenger jet landing in Detroit.

It’s the first time that shipments from the LNG plant located at Balhaf, on the eastern coast of Yemen, will be delivered to Boston. The first shipment to the United States from the plant operated by French energy giant GDF Suez arrived near Sabine, Texas, over the weekend, Healey said.

While Yemen’s ports meet international security standards, American authorities say additional security is necessary.

That could include additional screening of the crew, extra inspections on the ship and making sure the condition of the ship does not change by the time it gets to the U.S., Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen said in an interview with The Associated Press.

About 30 shipments from Yemen to Boston are expected annually during a 20-year contract with the company.

Critics of the deliveries have raised the specter of a massive fireball engulfing waterfront neighborhoods if one of the tankers were successfully detonated as it passed by.

One of the top concerns for security officials is making sure no stowaways manage to board the tankers at the port in Yemen or during their voyage, Healey said.

“That’s really the key here, to ensure that we have a security force on board that ship that’s checking the ship while it’s loading and while it’s in Yemeni waters to guarantee that no one who’s not authorized gets aboard the ship,” he said.

Once the ship arrives, it will be required to stop in an area about five to seven miles offshore while the Coast Guard ensures is has maintained proper security. Healey said Coast Guard officials will also board the ship to conduct their own inspection and could do underwater searches of the ship’s hull.

Healey said that only after he’s convinced all security measures have been taken will he allow the tanker to continue to the terminal under escort. He said LNG tankers are extremely safe and there has never been a major incident onboard a tanker since they started shipping the potentially explosive cargo 50 years ago.

Healey spoke with reporters after a closed-door meeting with state lawmakers, including House Speaker Robert DeLeo, D-Winthrop, whose district includes communities near the terminal.

DeLeo said that while he has “full confidence” in the Coast Guard’s findings, he still has lingering apprehensions about allowing tankers near populated areas.

“No one is ever going to be 100 percent confident,” he said.

DeLeo and other local officials, including Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, have pushed for an offshore terminal that would let the tankers offload their cargo without entering the inner harbor.

Menino said he was disappointed with the Coast Guard’s announcement, which he called “the wrong decision for the people of Boston and the metropolitan area.”

“It is unreasonable and unsafe to continually put the interests of large corporations ahead of the security of Boston area residents, and it is time to solve this problem once and for all,” Menino said in a statement. “Extra security alone is not a proper solution.”