[Federal Register Volume 69, Number 214 (Friday, November 5, 2004)]
[Notices]
[Pages 64578-64579]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 04-24641]


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DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Coast Guard

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Maritime Administration

[USCG-2004-16877]


Cabrillo Port Liquefied Natural Gas Deepwater Port License 
Application; Draft Environmental Impact Statement

AGENCY: United States Coast Guard, DHS; and Maritime Administration, 
DOT.

ACTION: Notice of availability; notice of public meetings; and request 
for public comments.

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SUMMARY: The Coast Guard and the Maritime Administration (MARAD) 
announce the availability of the joint draft environmental impact 
statement/environmental impact report (DEIS/DEIR) for Cabrillo Port 
Deepwater Port (DWP) License Application. The proposed Cabrillo Port 
liquefied natural gas (LNG) DWP would be located offshore of Ventura 
County, California. Since the applicant has also filed a California 
State Lands Commission (CSLC) land lease application for subsea 
pipelines through California State waters to deliver natural gas to 
shore, the DEIS/DEIR was prepared in accordance with a Memorandum of 
Agreement with the CSLC. The DEIS/DEIR will meet requirements 
consistent with the Deepwater Port Act (DWPA) of 1974, as amended (33 
U.S.C. 1501 et seq.); the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA 
Section 102[2][c]), as implemented by Council on Environmental Quality 
regulations (40 Code of Federal Regulations 1500 to 1508); Coast Guard 
policy (Commandant's Instruction M1675.1D); and the California 
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (California Public Resources Code 
Section 21000 et seq.) as implemented by the State CEQA Guidelines (14 
California Code of Regulations Section 15000 et seq.). The Coast Guard 
and the MARAD solicit public input on this DEIS/DEIR.

DATES: The DEIS/DEIR will be available on October 29, 2004. Comments or 
related materials on the DEIS/DEIR must reach the Coast Guard on or 
before December 20, 2004 at 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Public 
meeting dates are November 29, 2004 (Santa Clarita, CA), November 30, 
2004 (Oxnard, CA) and December 1, 2004 (Malibu, CA).

ADDRESSES: The Coast Guard, MARAD and CSLC will conduct an open house, 
followed by a public meeting, to receive oral or written testimony at 
the following times and places:

Monday, November 29, 2004; The Century Room (Open House) and City 
Council Chambers (Public Meeting), 23920 Valencia Blvd., Santa Clarita, 
CA 91355.

    Open House: 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
    Public Meeting: 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Tuesday, November 30, 2004; Oxnard Performing Arts Center, 800 Hobson 
Way, Oxnard, CA 93030.

    Open House: 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
    Public Meetings: 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. (this meeting may be extended 
until 4 p.m. if necessary to take all public comments) and 6:30 p.m. to 
9:30 p.m.

Wednesday, December 1, 2004; Webster Elementary School Cafetorium, 
Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, 3602 Winter Canyon, 
Malibu, CA 90265.

    Open House: 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.
    Public Meeting: 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
    All public meeting spaces will be wheelchair-accessible. 
Individuals may request special accommodations for the public meetings, 
such as real time Spanish translation and/or for the hearing impaired. 
Contact Cy Oggins, CSLC, at (916) 574-1884 or ([email protected]) if 
special accommodations are required. Requests should be made as soon as 
possible but at least three (3) business days before the scheduled 
meeting. Include the name and telephone number of the contact person, 
the timelines for requesting accommodations, and a TDD number that can 
be used by individuals with hearing impairments.
    It is not necessary to present comments at more than one meeting. 
One need not attend a meeting in order to comment. Comments may also be 
sent using only one of the following methods (identify the subject of 
the comment by using the docket number, USCG-2004-16877):
    (1) Electronically through the Web site for the Docket Management 
System, at http://dms.dot.gov.
    (2) By mail to the Docket Management Facility, U.S. Department of 
Transportation, Room PL-401, 400 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC 
20590-0001.
    (3) By fax to the Docket Management Facility at (202) 493-2251.
    (4) By delivery to Room PL-401 on the Plaza level of the Nassif 
Building, 400 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC, from 9 a.m. to 5 
p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. The telephone 
number is (202) 366-9329.
    (5) In addition to the Federal Docket Management system, comments 
may be made to the California State Clearinghouse by either mail or e-
mail to Cy Oggins, California State Lands Commission, 100 Howe Avenue, 
Suite 100-South, Sacramento, CA 95825; ([email protected]) or 
electronically through the project Web site at http://www.cabrilloport.ene.com. Include the State Clearinghouse number: 
2004021107 and docket number: USCG-2004-16877. However, if one of these 
CSLC comment submittal methods is used, the comment will also be 
entered in the Federal Docket Management Facility.

Viewing Comments and Documents

    To view comments, the DEIS/DEIR or other materials related to this 
license application, go to http://dms.dot.gov at any time and conduct a 
simple search using the following docket number: USCG-2004-16877. The 
Docket Management Facility maintains the Federal public docket for this 
project. Comments and material received from the public will become 
part of this

[[Page 64579]]

docket and will be available for inspection or copying in Room PL-401 
on the Plaza level of the Nassif Building, 400 Seventh Street SW., 
Washington, DC, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, except 
Federal holidays.

Privacy Act

    Anyone can search the electronic form of all comments received into 
any of our dockets by the name of the individual submitting the comment 
(or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf of an association, 
business, labor union, etc.). You may review the Department of 
Transportation's Privacy Act Statement in the Federal Register (FR) 
published on April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477), or you may visit http://dms.dot.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Information pertaining to the proposed 
Cabrillo Port Project is available online at http://dms.dot.gov, http://www.slc.ca.gov, or http://www.cabrilloport.ene.com. Questions 
regarding the proposed Project, the license application process, or the 
DEIS/DEIR process may be directed to Mark Prescott, Coast Guard, (202) 
267-0225 ([email protected]), Keith Lesnick, MARAD, (202) 366-
1624 ([email protected]) or Cy Oggins, CSLC, (916) 574-1884 
([email protected]). Questions regarding viewing or submitting 
materials to the docket may be directed to Andrea M. Jenkins, Program 
Manager, Docket Operations, (202) 366-0271.
    This public notice may be requested in an alternative format, such 
as Spanish translation, audiotape, large print, or Braille. Contact Cy 
Oggins, CSLC, (916) 574-1884 ([email protected]), or visit http://www.cabrilloport.ene.com.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Public Meetings and Request for Comments

    As discussed under ADDRESSES, the Coast Guard, MARAD and CSLC plan 
to conduct public meetings related to comments on the DEIS/DEIR for the 
proposed project. The open houses will be informal opportunities to ask 
questions and receive information regarding the project. The public 
meetings will be structured to provide interested members of the public 
with an opportunity to present comments regarding the DEIS/DEIR. 
Speakers at the public meetings will be recognized in the following 
order: elected officials, public agencies, individuals or groups in the 
sign-up order, and anyone else who wishes to speak. Speakers may be 
asked to limit their oral comments to three (3) minutes in order to 
afford everyone an opportunity to speak. Written comments will also be 
accepted. The Coast Guard, MARAD and CSLC also encourage submittal of 
comments and related material regarding this notice using one of the 
methods described under ADDRESSES. During the public meeting, speakers 
or the audience will not be authorized to set up any multimedia 
equipment (audio/video and/or projectors) or displays that would 
disrupt testimony of others.

Background Information

    A notice of application for the proposed Cabrillo Port DWP was 
published in the Federal Register on January 27, 2004 (69 FR 3934). 
Consult that notice for additional information regarding the proposed 
DWP, pipelines and the moorings that would be installed on the floor of 
the Pacific Ocean offshore of Ventura County, California.
    A notice of intent to prepare the joint DEIS/DEIR was published in 
the Federal Register on February 27, 2004 (69 FR 9344). Consult that 
notice for additional information regarding the criteria that was 
utilized for the environmental analysis in the joint DEIS/DEIR.

Proposed Action

    The Applicant proposes to construct and operate an offshore 
floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) that would be moored in 
Federal waters approximately 12.2 nautical miles (14 statute miles or 
22.4 kilometers) offshore of Ventura County in 2,900 feet (884 meters) 
of water. As proposed, LNG from the Pacific basin would be delivered by 
an LNG carrier to and offloaded onto, the FSRU; re-gasified; and 
delivered onshore via two new 21.1 mile (33.8-kilometer), 24 inch (0.6 
meters) diameter natural gas pipelines laid on the ocean floor. These 
pipelines would come onshore at Ormond Beach near Oxnard, California to 
connect with the existing Southern California Gas Company intrastate 
pipeline system to distribute natural gas throughout the Southern 
California region. The facilities would be designed to deliver a peak 
of up to 0.8 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) (22.7 million cubic 
meters).
    The FSRU would store LNG in three Moss spherical tanks. Each tank 
would have a 24 million gallon (91,000 cubic meter) LNG storage 
capacity, and the total FSRU LNG storage capacity would be 72.1 million 
gallons (273,000 cubic meters). The FSRU would be permanently moored, 
and would use a turret system (a tower-like revolving structure) to 
allow the FSRU to weathervane (rotate) around a fixed point. The FSRU, 
which would be designed for loading LNG from a side-by-side, moored LNG 
tanker, would be shaped like another vessel, double-sided, double-
bottomed, 938 feet (286 meters) long and 213 feet (65 meters) wide, 
with a displacement of approximately 190,000 deadweight tons.

Alternatives

    The DEIS/DEIR examines and assesses the environmental impact of the 
project location and pipeline routes of the preferred, alternative and 
the no action alternative. In addition to the environmental impacts, 
the DEIS/DEIR considers approving, approving with conditions or not 
approving (no action alternative) the license application and 
operation.
    As required by the National Environmental Policy Act, the Coast 
Guard will also analyze the no action alternative as a baseline for 
comparing the impacts of the proposed project. For the purposes of this 
project, the no action alternative is defined as not approving the 
Cabrillo Port DWP License Application.

    Dated: October 28, 2004.
Howard L. Hime,
Acting Director of Standards , Marine Safety, Security and 
Environmental Protection, U.S. Coast Guard.
Richard Lolich,
Acting Director, Office of Ports and Domestic Shipping, U.S. Maritime 
Administration.
[FR Doc. 04-24641 Filed 11-4-04; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-15-P