Oil terminal project catches heat from coastal residents

SURFSIDE BEACH — A virtual meeting for public feedback on a proposed petroleum project brought passionate comments from locals and environmentalists opposed to the plan.

In the midst of the public hearing Tuesday night, one thing became clear— people were not happy with the process that led to the virtual meeting regarding the Sea Port Oil Terminal Project, with participants speculating on whether they were victims of incompetence, technological oversight or even outright skullduggery from the people involved in the approval process.

Multiple commenters spoke negatively about the lack of in-person public hearings, as well as technical errors that had led to their feedback being siphoned away from the public record, they said.

Many participants also seemed to have difficulty or confusion with the way the system was set up, leading to a multitude of instances in which people did not seem able to respond when called upon during Tuesday’s hearing.

The public comment was heavily weighted and all but one self-described resident indicated a desire to prevent the Deepwater Port License Application for the export of crude oil from the U.S. from going through.

Melanie Oldham, a Freeport resident who is the president of a group calling itself Citizens for Clean Air and Clean Water of Freeport and Brazoria County, was one of the participants. The group’s Facebook page features posts highlighting problems with comment sections from the government site designed to collect feedback.

“We have been looking at this SPOT project since 2019. We’ve had a lot of smart people helping us look at it, research it and the bottom line is there is absolutely no benefit to our local communities of Surfside and Freeport, but they want us to live with the many, many risks we will have if this project would be built,” Oldham said.

Surfside resident Donna Robinson was the first local resident to speak Tuesday night. After saying the pipeline would be going through right down the street from her, she asked a number of questions.

“Why are they not picking a different area instead of a residential area? It shouldn’t even go there. Do they have the $20 million in a liability insurance fund? Do they have a decommissioning trust fund set up? What kind of stipend for each homeowner that lives in the spill zone are they providing? What kind of fund is in place for breaching 128 different water bodies that will be horizontally drilled into? What kind of plan is in place if there is a spill in the Port of Freeport shipping lane? What kind of fund is set up for fishing and tourism losses? How many lawsuits against Enbridge and Enterprise are there right now for breaching aquifers?” Robinson said.

“What benefits do you have to offer our city if you choose to bring your pipe right up our (expletive)? Sorry, I mean our residential area and wetlands,” she said.

Also expressed by many — dismay over being told by some representatives the project is a “done deal.” The argument it would not help national security as an export terminal parallels what many see as the negative impact of natural gas exports from a terminal Quintana, Surfside being a habitat of the endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle and Surfside’s reliance on Gulf wildlife for its economy also were aired.

One stark contrast to the overall group was Mark Wilson, a former Surfside councilman who said he’d decided to be in favor of the project after, among other things, sitting down to lunch with representatives of the company.

“I see this, and I’m sorry and I know Melanie and Donna and others aren’t going to be happy, but I totally support this because I was talking with executives yesterday and the day before about how the ship traffic is going to decrease, and especially with other projects going on right now in our region,” Wilson said, citing a belief pollution fears were overblown and unfounded.

The U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration and Coast Guard hosted the hearing. The SPOT project, headed by Enterprise Products Partners, would put a pipeline through residential areas in the city of Surfside Beach.

Enterprise, an industry giant which boasts of having about 5,300 miles of “crude oil pipelines, storage, terminals, and crude oil marketing activities” is often a target of environmentalist groups; at least one representative of which called their environmental record “abysmal” during the meeting.

This is an especially important point to Surfside residents as the pipelines would go through the city and close to its municipal water source, leaving homeowners in an extremely tenuous position should there be a leak.

Most local officials of Surfside, for their part, have remained opposed to the project in the more than three years since its announcement, expressing a firm desire to keep the community’s economy based on tourism, which they say will be irrevocably harmed by the increased industrialization running through the town and into the Gulf beyond.

The 45-day comment period ends Sept. 12 . The public can still submit feedback at www.spotnepaprocess.com.