Boston Must Prepare for Worst if LNG Tankers Are Targeted

By Craig Hooper

For South Boston and Dorchester, liquefied natural gas (LNG) is a permanent neighbor. Every week tankers carrying combustible liquefied natural gas trundle past Castle Island, heading toward the Tractebel/Distrigas operated LNG receiving terminal in Everett. These enormous ships, surrounded by a small security armada, are hard to miss. So too is the colorful Keyspan LNG Gas Tank, a long-standing landmark for travelers on the Southeast Expressway.

Most local officials consider Boston's liquefied natural gas infrastructure a potential terror target. Last month, former White House official Richard Clarke inflamed local fears by revealing, in his tell-all book Against All Enemies, that al Qaeda associates used Algerian LNG tankers as a conduit into Boston. Reporters pounced on Clarke's claims and used a lot of ink to detail indignant FBI or White House counterclaims. Unfortunately, the stories offered scant analysis of the key question behind Clarke's concern: Does liquefied natural gas infrastructure endanger Boston?

Natural gas infrastructure makes a tempting economic target for adversaries seeking to wage economic mischief. During the Cold War, Western operatives duped Russian agents into purchasing booby-trapped components for use in a natural gas pipeline. In June 1982, the newly constructed pipeline blew up, producing, according to former Air Force Secretary Thomas C. Reed, "the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space." The explosion, detailed in a February New York Times column by William Safire, was estimated to have yielded an explosion of 3 kilotons or better. Natural gas is not something to be treated lightly.

The natural gas industry insists that any threat posed by LNG infrastructure is overestimated and that the risk of an LNG-fueled explosion is limited. But U.S. military leaders think otherwise, and treat LNG facilities with extreme caution. When American military planners discussed retaking Kuwait in 1991, the US Marine Corps insisted a Kuwaiti LNG plant be destroyed before committing troops near the facility. A proposal to preemptively destroy the LNG plant was nixed by General Schwarzkopf, who reportedly claimed, "I do not want to destroy Kuwait in order to save it." In January of this year, an explosion and fire at an Algerian natural gas facility killed more than 20 people, offering further evidence that liquefied natural gas can turn lethal.

Keyspan's Gas Tank is the only obvious piece of permanent liquefied natural gas infrastructure in South Boston and Dorchester. The thirty-year old facility, sitting quietly by I-93 and tucked under the approaches to Logan Airport, has a relatively spotless operational history. To Keyspan's credit, the LNG tank has suffered only a handful of leaks due to minor mechanical and human errors.

Keyspan contends that the tank poses little danger to Dorchester. In the days after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Boston Globe reported that Keyspan representative Mike Connors insisted the tank could not explode and that heat from a fire at the tank would not harm neighbors. Given that both the Boston Globe and Boston Herald have since reported on studies that say that an LNG fire can release enough heat in thirty seconds to scorch unprotected skin a half-mile away, Keyspan may well be relying upon outdated safety assumptions.

Is the double-walled Keyspan gas tank tough enough to take on present-day terrorists? One popular terrorist weapon, the modern, hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher, is becoming increasingly powerful. The 2004-2005 issue of Jane's Infantry Weapons, a compendium of modern weaponry, suggests that a light-weight, easily hidden rocket-propelled grenade called an RPG-7, can, when firing a modern warhead, penetrate over three feet of military-quality armor and break through more than a meter of reinforced concrete.

On land, the rocket threat can be beaten. At the Keyspan LNG tank, a variety of tasteful and relatively inexpensive steps can quickly make Dorchester's liquefied natural gas tank an unappealing target for rocket-wielding terrorists. Simple barriers significantly reduce the chance that hand-held missiles might puncture the tank and ignite the contents.

Insuring LNG tanker security is another matter. The terror threat to these high-profile targets is real. According to a recent report published in a Lebanon-based newspaper, the Daily Star, an American counterterrorist official was quoted as saying that al Qaeda has developed a manual to teach how rocket-propelled grenades can "turn liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers into floating bombs."

This threat isn't the product of idle terrorist brainstorming. Terrorists have already successfully targeted tankers. During the Iran/Iraq war, Iranian radicals, sailing small craft, used anti-tank missiles to damage merchant shipping in the Persian Gulf. While no LNG tankers were hit, tankers of similar design were assaulted. The Lloyd's Register/Fairplay database on shipping accidents records that, on July 3, 1988, Iranian terrorists attacked a liquid petroleum gas (LPG) tanker, the Berge Strand. Anti-tank grenades punctured the dual-hulled ship and compromised several of the tanker's LPG storage tanks. While the Berge Strand wasn't carrying fuel at the time, successful penetration of the fuel storage tanks may validate the larger terror threat.

The LNG industry is quick to cite a different Persian Gulf attack as evidence that LNG carriers are able to withstand attack. The fully loaded LPG tanker Gaz Fountain survived after being set ablaze by aircraft-launched rockets. What goes unreported by the LNG industry is that the attack occurred in the open sea, allowing firefighters to operate unimpeded and without regard for secondary blazes ignited by LNG's concentrated combustive power. Even though every gallon of LPG holds several hundred times less potential energy than a gallon of LNG, the Gaz Fountain was kept miles out of port, and experts were flown in to prevent an explosion. An attack in a crowded, closed harbor offers little in the way of conveniences for firefighters and may make controlling an LNG tanker fire much more difficult.

Any attacked or damaged tanker must leave Boston the way it entered - passing by South Boston and Dorchester. In the event of an LNG emergency at the Keyspan LNG tank or in the harbor, many local neighborhoods may require rapid evacuation. Are the neighborhoods prepared? No. Are the companies that operate Boston's LNG infrastructure encouraging greater neighborhood readiness? No. This is exactly the sort of complacency that led America to a disaster on September 11, 2001.

Help isn't on the way. Governor Mitt Romney, the LNG industry and the federal government are working hard to stymie forthright debate over the risks and benefits of Boston's LNG infrastructure. Rather than spend a bit more to better secure LNG, Boston's LNG-associated companies seem brazenly confident that America's growing demand for LNG will outweigh Boston's overwhelming desire for a prudent and secure LNG infrastructure.

Boston may need this clean-burning, environmentally friendly fuel, but, given the gathering terror threat, Boston's present safety arrangements are unacceptable. Boston can live with LNG only if our elected officials, insurance companies and entire neighborhoods demand that Boston prepare for the worst. Boston holds a strong position; if Boston's LNG operators come to the table and go the extra mile to be a good neighbor here, the entire LNG sector will benefit. If not, then the LNG industry risks losing Boston and will have a tough time finding a foothold anywhere else in the Northeast.

Craig Hooper is a graduate student at the Harvard Graduate School of Public Health. He lives on Sagamore Street in Dorchester.