SWANSEA -- Led by Fire Chief Peter Burke, a small group of town officials met Friday afternoon with the developer who wants to use Somerset's Brayton Point as a port for receiving large amounts of liquefied natural gas.
Selectman Wayne W. Gray, state Rep. Philip Travis, D-Rehoboth, public works director David Webster and water district Supt. Robert Marquis had a private meeting with the president of Somerset LNG and several other project proponents for several hours, according to Burke.
Local officials fear that the shipment of large volumes of LNG to Brayton Point might pose a major safety threat to Swansea residents, particularly people in the thickly inhabited Gardners Neck area. LNG is a highly flammable substance that can fuel a deadly and expansive fire if it is ignited.
Burke -- whom the Board of Selectmen recently appointed as the town's LNG liaison -- said the developers established a communication line with Swansea officials, but they did not allay his concerns about the project.
He described the session at the Quequechan Club as nothing more than a "meet-and-greet" between local officials and proponents of the project, including the president of Somerset LNG, Michael Feodorov, and his lawyer, Neal B. Costello.
"They're saying it's in preliminary stages," Burke said, "that information will be forthcoming as they go forward."
Developers for the project say the so-called "thermal exclusion zone," an area where flames could severely burn people in an LNG disaster, would not reach Swansea from Brayton Point.
But Burke isn't convinced.
A scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has reported that the danger zone in a calamity involving the ignition of spilled LNG from just one of a tanker ship's five compartments would be seven-tenths of a mile.
The distance between Brayton Point and Gardners Neck is about a half-mile.
But Burke said he worries about a spill involving a much larger amount of LNG.
Meanwhile, spilled LNG evaporates into the air, changing from its liquid form to a heavy gaseous substance and from a heavy gas to a lighter gas.
Plumes of the gas suspended over the ground are still flammable and they represent another threat that Swansea officials need to explore, Burke said.
