LNG tankers

Is this photo a national-security threat?

adamg — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 12:10:05 +0000

I happened to be walking by Long Wharf yesterday when I looked out at the harbor and saw this huge ship heading toward the Tobin. LNG tanker! They're kind of amazing to see, so I started walking at a good pace down Long Wharf. It was moving faster than I was, so about two-thirds of the way down, I stopped and took a couple of photos. Then I got closer to the plaza at the end of the wharf and took a couple more, including this one.

See the police car? When I got to the waterfront, I'd just raised the camera to my face when the cop told me no pictures. He was nice about it, said something about orders from above, told me this wasn't even one of the big tankers, but, no, I didn't press the point, which is probably why I'm typing this at home, rather than from a bench at Boston Municipal Court (about a minute later, he told somebody else to put their camera down).

Yet, obviously, I was able to get pictures without being stopped, just a bit further up the wharf. As could have anybody else in the throngs of tourists enjoying a nice day on the water, some no doubt with way better zoom lenses on their cameras. Meanwhile, on my other side at the end of Long Wharf was a couple closely examining a map on their smartphone. Or were they secretly taking photos? No, probably she really was a local and he really was a visitor and they were just figuring out where to go next.

Obviously, security for giant containers of flammable gas is a good thing, and maybe it does make sense to station officers at every vantage point along the harbor. But is it just security theater when any yutz can just stand a few yards back and do whatever it was they were going to do at the water's edge?

You're reading this because a Yemeni LNG tanker did not blow up in the harbor this morning

adamg — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:08:21 +0000

Yemeni tanker plied the harbor this morning while you slept.

State Senate candidate would seek to end LNG shipments through Boston Harbor

adamg — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:21:57 +0000

Coast Guard escorting an LNG tanker last summer.

Dan Hill, who lives near Boston Harbor and is running for state senate in a district that includes Chelsea and Everett, says the state should do everything it can to try to keep LNG tankers out of Boston Harbor - especially Yemeni ones - and phase out the Distrigas natural-gas terminal in Everett in favor of a new facility in Naragansett Bay:

Hill noted that for new LNG ports the Coast Guard requires "security zones" restricting movement within 1,000 yards on either side of an LNG tanker, a standard that could not possibly be met in Boston Harbor. "I find it disturbing that safety requirements for new facilities apparently do not need to be met for existing facilities."

LNG through Boston Harbor: Safe or unsafe?

adamg — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 01:48:03 +0000

Adam Balsam says Tom Menino and Sal LaMattina should stop their posturing, listen to the Coast Guard and admit giant LNG tankers are safe.

Matt Conti, who lives in the North End, acknowledges the risk of a neighborhood-consuming fireball is low, but notes all the precautions the Coast Guard takes and says Boston shouldn't have to be the only city in the US where giant LNG tankers are allowed in a densely populated area.

The 'G' in 'LNG' must stand for 'ginormous'

adamg — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 03:35:50 +0000

The "wall" that Coast Guard patrol boat (with the machine gun mounted in the front) is in front of is actually the side of the Suez Matthew, an LNG tanker passing through Boston Harbor on its way out of Everett this afternoon (it's the tanker that went adrift off the Cape last December).

The Amy Winehouse of LNG tankers

adamg — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:44:18 +0000

OK, I just love this Herald headline: Troubled tanker no longer adrift off Cape Cod. Rehab does wonders!

We all dodged a bullet early this morning

adamg — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 04:00:35 +0000

Maybe Tom Menino was right about those LNG tankers after all.

Watching the LNG tankers go by

adamg — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 12:47:33 +0000

Marilora lives close enough to the harbor to be able to take pictures of the giant LNG tankers from her bedroom window. So she takes great interest in reports on the damage a terrorist attack on one could do, like incinerating everybody within a one-mile radius:

Should I take comfort in the fact that I will probably just be incinerated instantly? ... I know that we need LNG and the terminals have to go somewhere, but to have one in such a populated area is just such a huge risk, especially considering the Homeland Security Department has basically done didly squat to protect our ports from the possibility of terrorist attacks. ...

How cute: Our very first astroblog

adamg — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 13:40:35 +0000

Seems this blog, which purports to be part of an effort to get LNG tankers out of Boston Harbor, is actually part of a PR effort by AES, the company that wants to build an LNG terminal on Outer Brewster Island (and yes, dagnabbit, I got taken in).

Save the Brewsters is a site by people fighting AES's terminal proposal. Among their points:

A second LNG site would not replace the existing Everett facility, but would be built in additon to it (by a completely different company), and thereby have no impact on the frequency of LNG tankers traversing Boston Harbor.

The anti-tanker blog

adamg — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 04:17:50 +0000

LNG Solutions is a new blog aimed at fighting the continuing transit of LNG tankers through Boston Harbor:

Liquefied natural gas tankers traveling through Boston Harbor carry volatile cargo and are terrorists targets. Sixty times a year, these floating bombs steam past thousands of homes and 500,000 residents who are in constant danger. We want these dangerous ships out of Boston Harbor.

Update: This blog is part of a PR effort by the company that wants to build an LNG terminal on Outer Brewster Island, in other words, not some concerned residents.