We live in Passamaquoddy Bay, a branch of the Bay of Fundy in Atlantic Canada that is bisected by the U.S./ Canada border. I have lived here, except for 18 years, since 1950.

Photos/SunrisesSunsets/10-3015.html Passamaquoddy Bay photo

This area was settled by water and the communities that ring this bay are all close to each other by water. Our local people have fished these waters for five generations.

http://www.outtakes.com/campo/campotoc.html  Steven Muskie's Campobello Island site

Our local economy has survived the wrenching transition from fishing as a major economic support to tourism, ecotourism, boat building and home construction. and more.

http://quoddyloop.com/ Overview, both U.S. and Canadian sides, with maps.

We have the elegant and beautiful Canadian resort town of St. Andrews with its historic Algonquin Hotel. Campobello has the Roosevelt International Park and the Roosevelt home. Both have golf courses, restaurants, shops and more. This whole area is very heavily invested in tourism.

http://www.fairmont.com/algonquin/ Algonquin Resort Hotel, St. Steven

http://www.fdr.net/englishii/ Roosevelt Campobello International Park

http://www.campobello.com/herring.html Herring Cove Provincial Park, Campobello

http://www.westquoddy.com/ West Quoddy State Park, Lubec

http://www.nps.gov/sacr/ St. Croix Island International Historic Site

http://www.campobello.com/owen/owen.html Owen House, Campobello

http://www.standrewsnb.ca/ Town of St. Andrews

http://www.angelfire.com/biz2/ditourism/marine.html Deer Island, N.B.

http://www.eastportme.com/ Eastport, has aerial photos

http://www.campobello.com/official.html Campobello

http://www.cobscookbay.com/perry.htm Cobscook Bay Chamber

http://www.summerkeys.com/ Summerkeys, Lubec

http://members19.clubphoto.com/pam715999/2605925/guest.phtml Kayaking, Deer Island

The fish seem to be returning slowly. These waters support aquaculture, clamming, scalloping, commercial fishing, lobstering, whale watching and sailing.

http://www.eastportwindjammers.com/beal.html Eastport windjammers

http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/communic/statistics/commercial/landings  New Brunswick landings for commercial fishing 2003

We have ferries from Campobello to Deer Island and from Deer Island to Eastport, Maine in the summer, as well as the year round ferry from Grand Manan island to Black's Harbour. These ferries will be interfered with by LNG tanker exclusion zones.

http://www.grandmanannb.com/ Grand Manan

http://www.deerisland.nb.ca/ferries.htm Deer Island

http://www.eastportme.info/tours.html Eastport

All sources added together give around a half to a one billion dollar/year economy on the Canadian side alone. http://www.bayoffundy.ca/LNG/slideshow/photos/photo21.html

We have good real estate growth coming in and we are developing into more and more of a tourist destination- tourists are drawn by the peace and beauty and the Old World feeling. Twentieth century madness drops away here.

Still, Campobello Island and Deer Island are not readily understood by the tourists who come from the city. We are rich in our surroundings and seem to be managing reasonably well, but we have little disposable money. The question we always get is:

" How do people earn a living here?"

"Creatively", is the answer..

Labor is not all in terms of money, many men build their own houses and cooperate to maintain their houses, cars and boats. Many have freezers with deer meat, moose and fish in them, many have gardens. Families help each other out. The support system is large. The island's community fabric is tight. The people are tough and self sufficient and many families have been here for three, four or five generations. For these people, there is nowhere else they would live. Their roots are too deep to ever uproot.

We had watched the news with some interest as LNG terminals were proposed and fought bitterly and successfully in all the small towns across the border, proposals gradually moving up the coast of Maine as they lost each battle..

http://www.penbay.org/penbaylng.html lobster fisheries and LNG

http://www.fishermensvoice.com/archives/dec04.html Fisherman's Voice

http://www.penbay.org/prfosifffh41804.html Listen to fishermen online

(The LNG developers are fond of saying that it was NIMBYism in eastern Maine that defeated LNG, but in fact it was the fishermen who banded together and worked tenaciously and finally succeeded.)

http://www.boston.com/news/ a hand goes up

In June of 2004 we were shocked to discover that an LNG ( liquefied natural gas) terminal was proposed for the tribal reservation just outside the town of Eastport, Maine. Eastport is about two miles away from Campobello Island N.B. and a mile from Deer Island, N.B.

http://www.northernskynews.com/ Passamaquoddy speak out

http://www.savepassamaquoddybay.org/documents.html Memo to Governor Baldacci

Another LNG terminal is now proposed in Robbinston, Maine, just across the narrow mouth of the St.Croix River from the resort town of St.Andrews, N.B. The pier is in a place that would put the LNG tanks, terminal and tankers very close and in full view of this upscale historic resort town. Many people on the U.S. side, Passamaquoddy, and all on the Canadian side- Campobello, Deer Island and St.Andrews- are bitterly opposed to LNG. Soon after that one more LNG terminal proposal surfaced, in Red Beach, next door to Robbinston.. Perceiving a weak point, LNG developers had converged on us in a feeding frenzy. We are close to the Maritimes and Northeast pipeline and much closer to the Middle East than the Gulf Coast of the U.S. New England is gas starved. Less distance is money. According to FERC, the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, if all LNG developers submit acceptable proposals, they could all be built.

FERC takes each as they come, on an individual basis. Two Maine sites are now directly across the narrow St.Croix river mouth from St. Andrews.

http://www.savepassamaquoddybay.org/lng_developers.html  inside information on the developers involved

http://www.savepassamaquoddybay.org/area_map.html proposed sites flagged

It takes time to understand the negative local effects of LNG. The developers tell the locals that all is wonderful and there will be jobs and a rosy future, no more taxes and pots of money for everyone in the town that accepts LNG. After 13 months of research the truth becomes clear. We have learned a great deal about the corporate mindset, and there is no free lunch. While LNG burns cleaner than other fossil fuels, the industry itself is no more clean than most heavy industry. The huge tankers burn LNG and Bunker C (something between diesel and asphalt). The oversized tugs, which have to work all the time in these tides, burn diesel, Their emissions together are greater than the on land emissions. The inevitable cogeneration plant also has emissions, as does the terminal.

http://www.savepassamaquoddybay.org/

scroll down to community impact studies

Expect ground water pollution, major air pollution, noise and light pollution, loss of freedom on the water, loss of safety. In Lake Charles, Louisiana, just one LNG terminal and its easily available energy spawned 25 or more heavy industrial plants, giving Lake Charles the nickname " Cancer Alley". (Lake Charles is lauded by the industry as a state of the art terminal).

http://www.agrnews.org/issues/129/nationalnews.html

cancer alley

With three proposals in here we feel that the stage is set for real industrialization to happen. We have legitimate fears about the negative impacts that will be forced on our economy, all our natural resources, our safe existence and indeed our entire life style if any or all of these facilities are built here. We will lose the clean sea air, the night sky and the stars and the silence, eventually we will lose the whales and the marine life, our clean water, our resource based economy, our safe and peaceful villages, our independence and our local control. We will be an industrial bay. You will no longer want to visit us, and if you do you will no longer long to come back..

www.sunriseoncampobello.com describes in pictures the qualities we want to keep. This is the unpopulated east side of Campobello.

http://www.mecep.org/MeChoices05/ch_06242005.htm

sustainable tourism

The endangered right whale, slow moving, tame and buoyant, was the "right" whale to hunt. Now only 350 or so remain and they travel up and down the east coast, summering with calves in a concentrated nursery area in the Bay of Fundy between the island of Grand Manan and Nova Scotia. Tankers bound for the ports of St. John, N.B. were moving in the major shipping lanes through the right whale herd until the lanes were recently moved east away from the herd concentration to help protect these whales. Now LNG tankers headed for Passamaquoddy Bay will turn left off these shipping lanes at a designated point, and move through the edge of the right whale concentration on the way to Head Harbour passage. At some point they will pick up several large tugs. All the water these ships pass through is finback territory, minke territory and porpoise territory, and Head Harbour funnels nutrients and holds a concentration of these species. Head Harbour passage, rich and diverse, is home to some 2,000 species. All of them need clean water and a minimum of disturbance to thrive.

http://www.scep.org/LNG.html

approach to St. John and approach to Passamaquoddy Bay visualized

ONLINE LNG SLIDE SHOW on the same page decribes economic and environmental impacts in an interesting slide show

http://www.bayoffundy.ca/QuoddyBlog/index.php?catid=3&blogid=1

local recent whale sightings posted by local area citizens and other sightings like red phalaropes

http://new-brunswick.net/new-brunswick/whales/whalesave.html

whale rescue

Safe navigation is an issue in a place of 30-foot tides, ledges, treacherous currents and thick, pervasive, drifting fog. After the Deer Island to St. George ferry ran aground once too often, it was forbidden this year to run in thick fog. This larger year round ferry runs constantly and the captain knows his waters like no other man.

http://www.scep.org/media/tankers.gif LNG tanker size

These 1000 foot tankers will have to run the narrow island and shoal dotted Head Harbour Passage 800 feet from and parallel to the villages along the west coast of Campobello Island. The exclusion zone is usually 1500 ft. from each side of the tankers. They will have to execute a hairpin turn at very slow speed through the largest whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere, while passing very close to the city of Eastport, Maine.

http://www.oldsowwhirlpool.com/ the Old Sow Whirlpool

In those narrow passages our immense tides have shear but no slack in them. They never stop running. The Oklahoma-based industry says new navigational aids make these waters no problem. The local fishermen, who have lost all arrogance around the sea, shake their heads and laugh.

http://www.quoddylng.com/Quoddy_Reports_SSR_Nav_050905.pdf

Quoddy Bay LLC Navigation and Safety analysis

The threat of terrorism is another real fear. These tankers carry the equivalent in energy of 50+ Hiroshima bombs. LNG has between 10 and 13% other heavy hydrocarbons in it, like ethane and butane, and in certain concentrations with air can ignite with near explosive force. On water a spill is uncontrollable. The vaporized LNG, colorless and odorless, can travel a long way and still ignite and flash back to the ship.. The fire is ten times hotter than gasoline and impossible to put out. Putting a terrorist threat right on the U.S. international border, in a maze of parks, bays, islands and coves, peninsulas and inlets, with no buffer zone and expecting to secure it is unrealistic. Especially when the Canadian coast guard does not escort LNG tankers. Especially when the Canadian Coast Guard is now marginalized. Lately the U.S. Coast Guard can be seen cruising beyond its home range far into the waters around these Canadian islands and up into the Canadian side of the St. Croix River. Is the Canadian Coast Guard now dysfunctional in this new age of cross border collaboration?

http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/domino/reports.nsf/ Coast guard audit 2002

http://www.sfu.ca/casr/ft-senate2.htm Coast Guard and security

http://www.savepassamaquoddybay.org/safety_reports.html Safety and pollution issues and studies

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/12/15/172029.shtml Canada's security net

The entire Canadian side of the border, all the provincial politicians from both parties and N.B. Premier Lord, as well as BIA federal minister Andy Scott are against LNG in Passamaquoddy Bay. Much of the U.S. side is also against these proposals.

http://www.savepassamaquoddybay.org/documents.html Proclamations against LNG by area groups

http://www.savepassamaquoddybay.org/documents.html letters, faxes and news releases against LNG as well as legislative debate, hearings and testimony

We are tenaciously fighting with all our abilities and strengths to prevent our bay from becoming a dangerous place to live and a growing industrial corridor that will destroy everything we have worked for all our lives. We are privileged to live in a place that is still wild and beautiful. We have a relatively sustainable economy. We have huge finback whales, small minke whales, the occasional slow moving right whale, and many, many porpoise in our coves. This legendary and productive resource is worth saving from the jaws of corporate greed. Or have we now come to the point where this nation is willing to sacrifice our most scenic and most loved places, ruin the local economy and place the local residents in danger? For an American goal? What is the point of being Canadian?

See www.scep.org

for good pictorial descriptions of:

• local whale, porpoise and seabird sightings and pictures
• N.B. politicians fighting the proposals publicly
• An excellent slide show describing the major issues around LNG

See www.savepassamaquoddybay.org

• for a 16 month chronicle of our fight against LNG
• blow by blow descriptions and new articles month by month
• major supporting documents
• descriptions of LNG proposals and related documentation

In order for LNG tankers to get into this bay they have to come through Head Harbour passage, a narrow passage between the two Canadian islands, Campobello and Deer Island. The Law of the Sea now comes into play. If Canada wants to defend its communities from this major threat; it has to do so in terms of sovereignty.

Should Canada be more assertive? Canadians, (and many Americans) living here would very much like to see that happen. We first thought it would be simple for Canada just say to "No!" All of southern New Brunswick is against LNG development in this place. Did we not elect federal politicians to protect our interests? But the tricky business of corporate trade and trade laws and globalization versus human rights and sovereignty is rearing its head even here. The interests being protected federally may not be ours. We are not a third world country, but we feel like one. The weakening of Canadian sovereignty in the last 10 years is astounding! How this erosion could happen without the knowledge or input of the general public boggles the mind! It cannot be constitutional! Are corporate rights stronger now than any nation's constitution? Can Canada protect our rights or are we to be sacrificed, and to what? Corporate greed?

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20010430&s=greider

soveriegn corporations

Joyce Morrell, Campobello Island, N.B.