The process of routing LNG deliveries to the Distrigas Terminal in Everett cannot begin soon enough if it means keeping these tankers outside Boston Harbor’s inner reaches. Permitting LNG vessels to pass beneath the Tobin Bridge and proceed through Boston Harbor to an Everett berth amounts to gambling with catastrophe. The risks are stark: a terrorist attack targeting an LNG tanker could devastate the region and endanger countless lives. Similarly, a natural disaster striking a tanker in transit or at dock poses grave consequences. Mayor Menino, City Manager Jay Ash and Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria are correct in their assessment that the Coast Guard has misjudged the situation and that these shipments carry substantial risk. Compounding these safety concerns is the origin of the cargo—Yemen, a nation recognized as a significant terrorist training ground and one lacking effective governmental control. The potential for sabotage remains significant as long as these massive vessels carrying flammable cargo are permitted entry to Boston Harbor. On Tuesday morning, Chelsea residents observing the tanker navigate the Mystic River’s calm surface from Admiral’s Hill were struck by its enormous scale and the seemingly inadequate security measures accompanying its passage. The small Coast Guard vessels crewed with armed personnel that encircle the ship and monitor the harbor would prove ineffective against a coordinated terrorist operation—their weapons would offer little protection if the vessel itself were seized or compromised. What Menino, Ash, DeMaria and numerous others recognize is that a single incident could obliterate the safety record of nearly 30 years of incident-free deliveries to the Everett terminal. The skeptics are justified. The Coast Guard’s position lacks merit. In contemporary times, no moment has placed Charlestown, the North End, Chelsea, East Boston and Everett’s industrial sector in such genuine peril of the inevitable. An LNG delivery from Yemen will eventually encounter problems. The uncertainty lies only in timing and severity.
LNG, again
