By TAMARA McKENZIE,Assistant News Editor,tamara@nasguard.com

After almost six years of negotiating, "the government should stop wasting everyone's time and say no to the construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in The Bahamas," a local environmentalist charged Tuesday.

"This project does not benefit The Bahamas. It is purely in the interest of the United States and their environmental imperialism to meet the needs of the U.S., while ignoring the impact upon The Bahamas," said Director of the ReEarth environmental organization, Sam Duncombe, who also expressed concern about other projects that are on the government's drawing board.

"Additionally, as a country whose land mass is very low-[lying], the sea level rise is a real threat to our future well being. Why would we encourage the demise of our own country by allowing a fossil fuel burning facility to operate here?"

While Duncombe's comments have been made on more than one occasion, she said that having held a number of town meetings in recent years, in addition to launchingan online petition against the construction of an LNG pipeline in The Bahamas, her next move would be to send a package of information to every Cabinet Minister, Member of Parliament and every Senator, outlining the negative environmental and safety issues that would result from the construction of an LNG facility. "Hopefully this will in essence show the government of the day that we really should not be sending that plant here. The money is not enough and nothing is enough because we [The Bahamas] take all of the environmental and safety burdens," Duncombe said. "Florida should be looking at alternatives, the same way that The Bahamas should be looking at alternatives, but I don't think that it's right for the United States to hoist this particular project on our shoulders, when they are not prepared to take it on themselves."

Duncombe's comments came on the heels of Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham announcing almost two weeks ago that LNG was still not a priority for his newly elected Free National Movement government. "We will look at the situation and make some judgments but [LNG] is not a matter that we came to office giving a very high priority to," the Prime Minister said at the time. His comments, however, have not thwarted the efforts of Virginia-based Applied Energy Services (AES) which is seeking to construct an LNG pipeline and re-gasification facility on the man-made Ocean Cay.

In a recent interview with The Guardian less than a week ago, AES' Director Aaron Samson said he was still "fairly optimistic" about the project and that the company was hoping it would receive approval from the government to move things forward in the future. But if ReEarth has its way, there would be no pipeline construction in The Bahamas.

"Right now we know that we don't have the wherewithal for such a project," Duncombe said. "We can't even deal with the oil spills going on at Clifton and we are looking to take on a brand new industry? Come on! We already can't deal with what we've got."

The passionate environmentalist pointed out that while tourism was "big business" for Florida, the sunshine state was protecting its environment and the same should be done in The Bahamas, as tourism was the number one industry. "If Florida needs energy then they should look to attending to their own needs. If it was a mutually beneficial circumstance, then I can understand that, but it's not. We take all the burden and they get the energy...how does that work?" Duncombe asked, adding that the U.S. would always put itself before The Bahamas.

AES has been seeking approval to build an LNG facility in the Bahamas since 2001 when the Free National Movement initially held office. If given approval, AES will construct an LNG pipeline from the man-made Ocean Cay in Bimini to Dania Beach, Florida. It also proposes to construct a terminal to receive liquefied natural gas via ocean tankers, store the liquid gas, re-convert it to natural gas through warming and send it to the United States via a 94-mile pipeline.

AES was only given approval in principle by the first FNM government. The company has so far met the stringent requirements of the Bahamas Environment, Science and Technology Commission, but it is still waiting on the issuance of regulations that would govern the LNG industry in The Bahamas. The former Progressive Liberal Party administration reviewed draft regulations, but to date, such regulations have not been approved and presented to AES.

Minister of State for Public Utilities Phenton Neymour said the proposed regulations were still being reviewed, though he could not give an exact date when the review process would be completed. However, Duncombe told The Guardian yesterday that it did not matter how many regulations were put in place, because LNG was still dangerous to the environment. "We need to create our destiny and that is not happening" Duncombe said. "We are allowing everybody to come into the country and tell us how it should be run, what developments we should allow and what we should not allow, and I don't know what we are going to do but to be honest, it's very disconcerting."