At one time, few people came to Dominion’s public meetings because they were “so boring,” an almost wistful Dominion spokesman, Don Donovan, told WAMU-FM in recent a news report.
Well, they’re attending now. Calvert County residents are taking note and finding nothing boring about Dominion’s plan for a $3.8 billion facility at Cove Point to export fracked natural gas to India and Japan.
People don’t come “unless somebody scares them to come,” Donovan said.
Or maybe they find out the stark truths hidden behind the fancy news releases about jobs (not so many permanent ones) and tax revenue (minus some hefty tax giveaways). After a news conference called by a Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN)-led coalition in September, regional media have been waking up to Calvert County as ground zero in this scheme. And residents of Lusby, who live closest to the planned facility, are making their voices heard. So far, coverage of the “Clean Energy, Not Cove Point” campaign has appeared in Southern Maryland Newspapers Online (SoMdNews), Bay Net, the Bay Journal, WAMU-FM, the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, the Daily Record (subscription req’d), the Frederick News-Post, and WJZ-TV.

The week before the Maryland Crossroads nine-city tour got under way, SoMdNews reported Oct. 25 about a packed “Calvert at Risk” town hall meeting. Jean Marie Neal, a member of the Cove of Calvert HOA, fears “[t]he noise from the compressors and turbines will be heard day and night,” the report said. Neighbors who currently enjoy quiet evenings on their porches “can forget that,” Neal said.
SoMdNews reported that a chief concern is that a full Environmental Impact Study is not proposed and that Dominion is claiming it isn’t necessary. It also quotes Patuxent Riverkeeper and CEO Fred Tutman: “I don’t think that I have enough information to know the full extent of this project. … We need to get answers before it’s a done deal.”
Other news coverage has shown Calvert commissioners relinquishing their local zoning authority over the project — despite residents’ objections — and approving handsome tax write-offs for Dominion.
A BayNet article on the zoning deliberations reported that many residents “took the opportunity to criticize the county commissioners for their unabashed support of the multibillion-dollar expansion plan that would give the facility the capability to export LNG.”
Residents at the meeting expressed concern about emissions, the effect of 90 additional megatankers docking at the plant’s offshore pier, the danger of explosions, the plant’s need for large amounts of water, construction traffic, terrorism, noise and the expansion of fracking. (Check out the packed room of concerned residents in the photo to the right, courtesy of Richelle Brown.)
It’s worth noting that this crowd showed up despite discouragement from Commissioner Susan E. Shaw, who posted on Facebook: “It is a waste of time to come to the zoning hearing if you have concerns about the Dominion Cove Point Project. FERC hearings will be held later. Of course, if you want to waste your time, feel free.” (The post was soon deleted, but Sierra Club’s Maryland Chapter saved the screen grab for sharing.)
But resident after resident spoke up. Here are some quotes from the Bay Net:

• “No one really knows the ramifications,” said Neal, the HOA member. “This was a rushed, ill-conceived proposal.”
• Kelly Canavan said the zoning amendments were “clearly written for Dominion,” labeled it “spot-zoning” and therefore “illegal.” Canavan said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission lacks the expertise to consider the effect of the project on residents’ quality of life.
• “No one should be comfortable with the abdication of a moral responsibility,” Todd Porter of Prince Frederick said of the zoning change. Of Dominion, Porter said, “I don’t trust them.”
• “It’s not a time to roll over,” said Anne Parran Sledge of Drum Point. “We’re letting the devil in the back door. We are basically sitting ducks if something goes awry.”
• “I’m concerned about my life and family,” said Tracy Eno, who explained that Cove Point Road is her only escape route if a disaster occurs at the LNG plant.

Residents are none too pleased with the tax giveaways the commissioners approved either.
In a Nov. 4 article, the Washington Post disclosed that Dominion would pay a set amount for the first five years of the facility’s operation but then receive tax credits for the next nine years of “42 percent on the property taxes it owes the county.”
According to the Post, county officials declined to estimate the tax gift. Josh Tulkin, director of the Maryland chapter of the Sierra Club, was suspicious: “You would think that when you’re making a budget calculation like that, it would be very relevant … what the financial implication would be.”
Donovan, the Dominion spokesman, told the Post that the credit is necessary to make the project economically viable. So, county residents must subsidize Dominion to make this project a go. And live with the environmental consequences.
At the meeting where the commissioners eventually approved the tax breaks, SoMdNews reported that residents questioned the deal. For example, it quoted Lusby resident Leonard Zuza: “Dominion wants this deal as much as you do. Once you make significant contractual concessions, your leverage disappears.”
And Neal called it a “tax giveaway hearing” and said the board had “become Santa Claus for Dominion and ‘Scrooges’ for residents.”
Commissioner Shaw, who had tried to dissuade residents from attending that earlier zoning meeting, expressed her full support for the project, SoMdNews reported: “We got the best deal from Dominion that we could get. … This is a win-win.”
For many residents, the tax giveaways, traffic, pollution, threats of explosions and terrorism, increased fracking are sounding more like a lose-lose.
“The overall concern is that what you’re doing is you’re turning this entire area into an industrial site — that, itself, just blows your mind,” Neal said on the WAMU report, which also included a poll. The poll, admittedly unscientific, asks: “Should Maryland allow a natural gas export facility on the Chesapeake Bay?” The results as of Sunday, Nov. 10: 70.09% say no, 29.19% say yes and 0.72% don’t know.
The proposed project is also making news across the state. In an op-ed published in the Frederick News-Post, Ann Nau of Myersville said Dominion benefits when communities fail to connect the dots between the proposed LNG export plant and their health. Her town is fighting a compressor station that would be part of the infrastructure getting fracked gas from the Marcellus Shale to Cove Point. She wrote: “All in all, Dominion’s big-picture plan — to pipe across Maryland, liquefy and export nearly 1 billion cubic feet of gas from Cove Point every day — is a great deal for big gas corporations. But it’s a lousy deal for Marylanders. While Dominion walks away with huge profits, we will be stuck with higher prices, dirtier air and the industrialization of our rural community.”
CCAN Director Mike Tidwell had an op-ed published in the Washington Post, where he noted that a “careful review of Dominion’s application to the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) shows how this one facility would turn Maryland — a state with relatively progressive global-warming policies — into a regional dumping ground for carbon pollution.”
Saying no to Dominion’s proposed project is “saying yes to something much better … for the environment and jobs,” said Tidwell in a SoMdNews article about the Crossroads Tour at St. Mary’s College.
Instead of getting entrenched in another generation of fossil fuels, we need dramatically increase wind and solar. “There’s no sea level rise that comes with wind power,” Tidwell continued. “Plus, you get the jobs. And, whenever there’s a huge solar energy spill, it’s called a nice day. Plus, you get the jobs.”