We urgently need YOUR HELP to keep Puget Sound Energy (PSE) fracked gas LNG from going operational on May 1st. The Puyallup Tribe and Earthjustice Appeals Hearing starts on April 12 but PSE is asking the Utilities & Transportation Commission (UTC) to fire up their LNG refinery now. Glaring problems with blast and vapor explosion risk are coming out in the Appeal and we MUST NOT allow PSE to start operations until the Court has ruled.

Please click here to send a letter to the UTC and insist they NOT allow PSE to begin operations until the Court issues rules on the Appeal. This is the only way to protect the safety of the Tribe and people of Tacoma.

The legal team for the Appeal has worked non-stop to have all project documents reviewed by experts in the field. Engineer Thomas Spicer’s Declaration analyzes PSE’s LNG blast risk with damning conclusions. Spicer’s areas of expertise include fire and explosion hazard assessment, atmospheric dispersion of toxic and flammable air-borne contaminants, among others. He has served as a consulting engineer for government and industry clients including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, Exxon, and the American Petroleum Institute.

Spicer’s Declaration confirms the Tribe’s concerns and alerts us to even more alarming potential blast and boiling vapor explosion hazards. He writes about SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES to the project and unmeasured risks for blasts and explosions. Spicer states: “PSE considered the hazard associated with catastrophic failure of vessel V-204, but the assessment failed to recognize that a catastrophic failure would cause a boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion, or BLEVE. This is a significant hazard…PSE changed the design of the Tacoma LNG project to accommodate a raw feed gas composition with a greater heavy hydrocarbon content… This change in the design of the Tacoma LNG project, adding equipment and expanding the capacity of existing equipment that handles heavy hydrocarbons, would pose a potential fire and explosion hazards that have not been assessed.” 

Ramona Bennett, Tribal Elder, “It’s like a BOMB in my backyard.”

We must not allow PSE’s tank to ever hold fracked gas.

YEHOW!

Photo Credit: Native Daily Network