Concrete is being poured at the Driftwood LNG facility in Calcasieu Parish in this photo taken in May. Four of the 14 liquified natural gas export terminals either built in or planned for Louisiana are grappling with extended timelines because of regulatory delays or financing struggles, according to The Advocate’s record of the state’s LNG facilities.
Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré
Concrete is being poured at the Driftwood LNG facility in Calcasieu Parish in this photo taken in May. Four of the 14 liquified natural gas export terminals either built in or planned for Louisiana are grappling with extended timelines because of regulatory delays or financing struggles, according to The Advocate’s record of the state’s LNG facilities.
Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré
Less than 40 years ago, Cameron Parish was America’s single greatest seafood port, bringing in nearly 700 million pounds of seafood in 1984 alone.
When I go there today, I barely recognize the place. The fishing and shrimping fleet is a fraction of what it once was. Homes and churches are still destroyed and abandoned from hurricanes like Rita, Ike, Laura and Delta. The population of the main town has dwindled to only a few hundred people, and the surrounding parish now counts only about 5,700 inhabitants. Anthony Theriot, a lifelong shrimper, is one of them. He’s never seen anything like this before.
The decline isn’t a natural occurrence. Hurricanes are nothing new to this community, which has always pulled together to rebuild. Even after Hurricane Audrey blasted the area in 1957, the hardworking shrimping and fishing families of this proud corner of southwest Louisiana committed to rebuilding.
The forces pulling apart Cameron Parish are man-made. They may move slower than a Category 5 storm, but the damage they cause is much longer lasting.
Gas export terminals, the behemoth facilities with their signature fuel tanks and flares, are clogging the wetlands and waterways fishermen and shrimpers rely on. The oil and gas industry calls these terminals by the euphemism “LNG” but their purpose is the same: to load American gas onto tankers and sell it overseas. Another new terminal, Calcasieu Pass 2, may gain federal approval as soon as this fall.
Theriot has worked these waters for more than 20 years, and he’s clear-eyed about what CP2 would mean to his business and his family. “I used to be able to make a good living for my family,” he says. “Since the tankers came in, I’m lucky if I can find any catch within a day’s journey, and if they add this new terminal there won’t be anything left.”
The mouth of the Calcasieu River is the only point of access for shrimpers, fishermen and anyone making a living on the water from the city of Lake Charles all the way down to the Gulf. Unfortunately, it’s also the proposed location for CP2. If approved, the terminal would export up to 20 million tons of gas per year, consume what little frontage is left at the mouth of the river and clog this already busy chokepoint with even more tankers.
These tankers cause massive damage to fisheries. And with enough fossil fuel onboard to light up an entire city, they’re effectively floating bombs when full. When just one of them heads down the Calcasieu River and into the Gulf, local fishermen can’t even launch their boats due to safety regulations.
“We just can’t take it anymore,” says veteran Cameron fisherman Eddie LeJuine. “My wife and I raised five kids here and I made a good living, but since these tankers moved in, we’re barely making a living. We work hard and live simply, but none of that matters if they keep tearing up our waterways and killing our fisheries … if this continues, we’ll have nothing left.”
This project would be a death knell for Cameron’s fishing families and the Louisiana seafood industry, and its approval looks likely. Under the Biden administration, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has been rubber stamping permits for gas export terminals. So much for the administration’s professed climate goals. Once a terminal like CP2 is built, it will package and sell planet-warming fossil fuels for decades to come.
For an administration that emphasizes the needs of working people, approving another one of these fossil fuel giants in America’s greatest fishery would be a bizarre choice as well. Sacrificing hardworking fishermen and their families for the sake of multinational corporations is anything but pro-worker.
FERC and the Department of Energy need to reject CP2’s applications and prevent this looming disaster. Meeting the administration’s goals for the climate and for American workers depends on it. And so too do fishermen and shrimpers and their families. We can’t let their businesses be sacrificed for another plant that will just sell off American gas to the highest overseas bidder.
Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré (Ret.) led Joint Task Force Katrina in New Orelans. He is currently head of The Green Army, an organization dedicated to finding solutions to pollution.
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