USA: Save The Bay Takes Hess LNG Fight to the *Street*

Determined to put Hess Corporation’s plan for a new Fall River (MA) liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal to rest, Rhode Island-based Save The Bay is taking a new tact by reaching out directly to the investment community to disseminate its message about the futility of Hess’ siting efforts.

“Hess’ management appears to be blindly forging ahead with this project against the will of two states and in the face of insurmountable permitting obstacles. However, we’re confident that management will listen to shareholders when they understand that their money is being squandered,” said Save The Bay Executive Director Jonathan Stone.

The non-profit environmental organization has sent a letter to all major shareholders today and contacted industry analysts.

“Management has badly miscalculated its estimation of the time and expense required to obtain the necessary permits for this project, has misjudged how quickly competing projects would come on line, and underestimated the resolve of the citizens of Massachusetts and Rhode Island,” writes Stone in his letter to Hess shareholders.

Citing a variety of permitting, political and economic reasons for abandoning their plans, Stone concludes, “In the parlance of the energy industry, Hess Corporation’s Fall River terminal project is a dry hole. Your money is being wasted.” The unabridged open letter to shareholders can be found at: https://www.savebay.info/PDFs/WSJLetter/unabridged.pdf.

Save The Bay has fought against the Hess proposal for more than seven years, maintaining that it would require extensive dredging, permanently destroy fish habitat and cost jobs as it disrupts mixed use of the Bay, rendering much of Narragansett Bay off-limits to the public. Save The Bay’s open letter to shareholders has been sent just two weeks after a bipartisan letter to the top members of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development was sent by U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), John Kerry (D-MA), and Scott Brown (R-MA), urging them to prohibit the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) from using federal funds to evaluate an LNG terminal in the city of Fall River, Massachusetts.

Also, Congressmen Barney Frank (D-MA) and James McGovern (D-MA) have inserted a provision into a House Appropriations bill by stating that “no funds made available by the act may be used to take any action to authorize the construction of any liquefied natural gas terminal or its infrastructure to be located within five miles of the city of Fall River, Massachusetts, or to authorize vessels carrying liquefied natural gas to serve such terminal.”

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Source: Save The Bay, November 17, 2010;