[Federal Register: November 5, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 214)]
[Notices]
[Page 64578-64579]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr05no04-62]
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DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Coast Guard
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Maritime Administration
[USCG-2004-16877]
Cabrillo Port Liquefied Natural Gas Deepwater Port License
Application; Draft Environmental Impact Statement
AGENCY: United States Coast Guard, DHS; and Maritime Administration,
DOT.
ACTION: Notice of availability; notice of public meetings; and request
for public comments.
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SUMMARY: The Coast Guard and the Maritime Administration (MARAD)
announce the availability of the joint draft environmental impact
statement/environmental impact report (DEIS/DEIR) for Cabrillo Port
Deepwater Port (DWP) License Application. The proposed Cabrillo Port
liquefied natural gas (LNG) DWP would be located offshore of Ventura
County, California. Since the applicant has also filed a California
State Lands Commission (CSLC) land lease application for subsea
pipelines through California State waters to deliver natural gas to
shore, the DEIS/DEIR was prepared in accordance with a Memorandum of
Agreement with the CSLC. The DEIS/DEIR will meet requirements
consistent with the Deepwater Port Act (DWPA) of 1974, as amended (33
U.S.C. 1501 et seq.); the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA
Section 102[2][c]), as implemented by Council on Environmental Quality
regulations (40 Code of Federal Regulations 1500 to 1508); Coast Guard
policy (Commandant's Instruction M1675.1D); and the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (California Public Resources Code
Section 21000 et seq.) as implemented by the State CEQA Guidelines (14
California Code of Regulations Section 15000 et seq.). The Coast Guard
and the MARAD solicit public input on this DEIS/DEIR.
DATES: The DEIS/DEIR will be available on October 29, 2004. Comments or
related materials on the DEIS/DEIR must reach the Coast Guard on or
before December 20, 2004 at 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Public
meeting dates are November 29, 2004 (Santa Clarita, CA), November 30,
2004 (Oxnard, CA) and December 1, 2004 (Malibu, CA).
ADDRESSES: The Coast Guard, MARAD and CSLC will conduct an open house,
followed by a public meeting, to receive oral or written testimony at
the following times and places:
Monday, November 29, 2004; The Century Room (Open House) and City
Council Chambers (Public Meeting), 23920 Valencia Blvd., Santa Clarita,
CA 91355.
Open House: 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Public Meeting: 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004; Oxnard Performing Arts Center, 800 Hobson
Way, Oxnard, CA 93030.
Open House: 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Public Meetings: 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. (this meeting may be extended
until 4 p.m. if necessary to take all public comments) and 6:30 p.m. to
9:30 p.m.
Wednesday, December 1, 2004; Webster Elementary School Cafetorium,
Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, 3602 Winter Canyon,
Malibu, CA 90265.
Open House: 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Public Meeting: 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
All public meeting spaces will be wheelchair-accessible.
Individuals may request special accommodations for the public meetings,
such as real time Spanish translation and/or for the hearing impaired.
Contact Cy Oggins, CSLC, at (916) 574-1884 or (ogginsc@slc.ca.gov) if
special accommodations are required. Requests should be made as soon as
possible but at least three (3) business days before the scheduled
meeting. Include the name and telephone number of the contact person,
the timelines for requesting accommodations, and a TDD number that can
be used by individuals with hearing impairments.
It is not necessary to present comments at more than one meeting.
One need not attend a meeting in order to comment. Comments may also be
sent using only one of the following methods (identify the subject of
the comment by using the docket number, USCG-2004-16877):
(1) Electronically through the Web site for the Docket Management
System, at http://dms.dot.gov.
(2) By mail to the Docket Management Facility, U.S. Department of
Transportation, Room PL-401, 400 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC
20590-0001.
(3) By fax to the Docket Management Facility at (202) 493-2251.
(4) By delivery to Room PL-401 on the Plaza level of the Nassif
Building, 400 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC, from 9 a.m. to 5
p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. The telephone
number is (202) 366-9329.
(5) In addition to the Federal Docket Management system, comments
may be made to the California State Clearinghouse by either mail or e-
mail to Cy Oggins, California State Lands Commission, 100 Howe Avenue,
Suite 100-South, Sacramento, CA 95825; (ogginsc@slc.ca.gov) or
electronically through the project Web site at http://www.cabrilloport.ene.com.
Include the State Clearinghouse number:
2004021107 and docket number: USCG-2004-16877. However, if one of these
CSLC comment submittal methods is used, the comment will also be
entered in the Federal Docket Management Facility.
Viewing Comments and Documents
To view comments, the DEIS/DEIR or other materials related to this
license application, go to http://dms.dot.gov at any time and conduct a
simple search using the following docket number: USCG-2004-16877. The
Docket Management Facility maintains the Federal public docket for this
project. Comments and material received from the public will become
part of this
[[Page 64579]]
docket and will be available for inspection or copying in Room PL-401
on the Plaza level of the Nassif Building, 400 Seventh Street SW.,
Washington, DC, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, except
Federal holidays.
Privacy Act
Anyone can search the electronic form of all comments received into
any of our dockets by the name of the individual submitting the comment
(or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf of an association,
business, labor union, etc.). You may review the Department of
Transportation's Privacy Act Statement in the Federal Register (FR)
published on April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477), or you may visit http://dms.dot.gov
.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Information pertaining to the proposed
Cabrillo Port Project is available online at http://dms.dot.gov, http://www.slc.ca.gov, or http://www.cabrilloport.ene.com. Questions
regarding the proposed Project, the license application process, or the
DEIS/DEIR process may be directed to Mark Prescott, Coast Guard, (202)
267-0225 (mprescott@comdt.uscg.mil), Keith Lesnick, MARAD, (202) 366-
1624 (Keith.Lesnick@marad.dot.gov) or Cy Oggins, CSLC, (916) 574-1884
ogginsc@slc.ca.gov). Questions regarding viewing or submitting
materials to the docket may be directed to Andrea M. Jenkins, Program
Manager, Docket Operations, (202) 366-0271.
This public notice may be requested in an alternative format, such
as Spanish translation, audiotape, large print, or Braille. Contact Cy
Oggins, CSLC, (916) 574-1884 (ogginsc@slc.ca.gov), or visit http://www.cabrilloport.ene.com
.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Public Meetings and Request for Comments
As discussed under ADDRESSES, the Coast Guard, MARAD and CSLC plan
to conduct public meetings related to comments on the DEIS/DEIR for the
proposed project. The open houses will be informal opportunities to ask
questions and receive information regarding the project. The public
meetings will be structured to provide interested members of the public
with an opportunity to present comments regarding the DEIS/DEIR.
Speakers at the public meetings will be recognized in the following
order: elected officials, public agencies, individuals or groups in the
sign-up order, and anyone else who wishes to speak. Speakers may be
asked to limit their oral comments to three (3) minutes in order to
afford everyone an opportunity to speak. Written comments will also be
accepted. The Coast Guard, MARAD and CSLC also encourage submittal of
comments and related material regarding this notice using one of the
methods described under ADDRESSES. During the public meeting, speakers
or the audience will not be authorized to set up any multimedia
equipment (audio/video and/or projectors) or displays that would
disrupt testimony of others.
Background Information
A notice of application for the proposed Cabrillo Port DWP was
published in the Federal Register on January 27, 2004 (69 FR 3934).
Consult that notice for additional information regarding the proposed
DWP, pipelines and the moorings that would be installed on the floor of
the Pacific Ocean offshore of Ventura County, California.
A notice of intent to prepare the joint DEIS/DEIR was published in
the Federal Register on February 27, 2004 (69 FR 9344). Consult that
notice for additional information regarding the criteria that was
utilized for the environmental analysis in the joint DEIS/DEIR.
Proposed Action
The Applicant proposes to construct and operate an offshore
floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) that would be moored in
Federal waters approximately 12.2 nautical miles (14 statute miles or
22.4 kilometers) offshore of Ventura County in 2,900 feet (884 meters)
of water. As proposed, LNG from the Pacific basin would be delivered by
an LNG carrier to and offloaded onto, the FSRU; re-gasified; and
delivered onshore via two new 21.1 mile (33.8-kilometer), 24 inch (0.6
meters) diameter natural gas pipelines laid on the ocean floor. These
pipelines would come onshore at Ormond Beach near Oxnard, California to
connect with the existing Southern California Gas Company intrastate
pipeline system to distribute natural gas throughout the Southern
California region. The facilities would be designed to deliver a peak
of up to 0.8 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) (22.7 million cubic
meters).
The FSRU would store LNG in three Moss spherical tanks. Each tank
would have a 24 million gallon (91,000 cubic meter) LNG storage
capacity, and the total FSRU LNG storage capacity would be 72.1 million
gallons (273,000 cubic meters). The FSRU would be permanently moored,
and would use a turret system (a tower-like revolving structure) to
allow the FSRU to weathervane (rotate) around a fixed point. The FSRU,
which would be designed for loading LNG from a side-by-side, moored LNG
tanker, would be shaped like another vessel, double-sided, double-
bottomed, 938 feet (286 meters) long and 213 feet (65 meters) wide,
with a displacement of approximately 190,000 deadweight tons.
Alternatives
The DEIS/DEIR examines and assesses the environmental impact of the
project location and pipeline routes of the preferred, alternative and
the no action alternative. In addition to the environmental impacts,
the DEIS/DEIR considers approving, approving with conditions or not
approving (no action alternative) the license application and
operation.
As required by the National Environmental Policy Act, the Coast
Guard will also analyze the no action alternative as a baseline for
comparing the impacts of the proposed project. For the purposes of this
project, the no action alternative is defined as not approving the
Cabrillo Port DWP License Application.
Dated: October 28, 2004.
Howard L. Hime,
Acting Director of Standards , Marine Safety, Security and
Environmental Protection, U.S. Coast Guard.
Richard Lolich,
Acting Director, Office of Ports and Domestic Shipping, U.S. Maritime
Administration.
[FR Doc. 04-24641 Filed 11-4-04; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-15-P