A protest over an LNG company's operations is scheduled for Saturday. Here are the details
A caravan planned by local environmental groups to protest Cheniere Energy’s operations in the Coastal Bend is set for the weekend.
Ground broke on the Gregory facility– Corpus Christi Liquefaction, a subsidiary of Cheniere – in October 2022. The company produces and exports liquefied natural gas.
In a news release, Texas Campaign for the Environment representatives described Cheniere as negatively impacting public health and the environment, and voiced concern about the liquefied natural gas exporter’s use of gas combustion turbines and benzene and formaldehyde emissions.
“It’s long past time to put the health and safety of our community above the profits of a multi-billion dollar corporation,” wrote Autumn Hensiek-Fain, Texas Campaign for the Environment Coastal Bend Exports organizer, in the email.
In an email to the Caller-Times, Cheniere spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder wrote that as the company has expanded local operations, “we have done so with a focus on safety, reliability and efficiency,” and that the turbines don’t “pose a threat to public health and the environment.”
“Regarding our turbines, they comply with federal regulations of formaldehyde and are below the new limits issued by the EPA,” he wrote. “Our turbines comply with state permitting programs for benzene.”
Scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday, those participating in the caravan will meet at La Retama Park, 500 N. Mesquite St., according to the news release.
Those starting the caravan from Corpus Christi will then travel to the Portland Walmart, located at 2000 U.S. Highway 181 to meet with additional residents from the Coastal Bend area before continuing the caravan protest, the email states.
A subsequent news conference is planned for 3:30 p.m. in Portland at Simpson Park, located off the Meadowbrook Drive and Broadway Boulevard intersection, as well.
The protest comes on the heels of the Biden Administration’s announcement last week that pending LNG terminal projects would be put on hold.
“My Administration is announcing today a temporary pause on pending decisions of Liquefied Natural Gas exports – with the exception of unanticipated and immediate national security emergencies,” President Joe Biden said in a statement last week. “During this period, we will take a hard look at the impacts of LNG exports on energy costs, America’s energy security, and our environment. This pause on new LNG approvals sees the climate crisis for what it is: the existential threat of our time.”
In its news release, Texas Campaign for the Environment cheered the Biden Administration’s decision.
“As frontline organizers across the Gulf Coast celebrate this win, they also seek to highlight the harm that has already been caused by LNG in their own backyards,” the email stated.
Cheniere has been a “pacesetter in environmental transparency,” Burnham-Snyder wrote in his email to the Caller-Times, adding that the company has funded an air monitoring station in Gregory.
Company compliance with environmental regulations “is how we make sure we are following both the letter of the law and the spirit, which is to act in the common good,” he wrote.
It is not expected the Biden Administration’s pause will impact its expansion project timelines, Cheniere spokesman Bernardo Fallas wrote in an email to the Caller-Times shortly after the Biden administration's announcement last week.
“We are confident we will continue to secure all regulatory approvals for our expansion projects within our expected timelines, as we have for more than a decade under multiple administrations,” he wrote.
More: Cheniere taking Biden administration's LNG export terminal 'pause' in stride
More: Cheniere breaks ground on $8 billion expansion of LNG export facility near Corpus Christi
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Caravan planned Corpus Christi protest LNG Cheniere
