Rio Grande LNG and the Port’s Pipe Dreams

Many of us have heard about the proposed LNG projects and their air emissions measured in tons per year and massive environmental destruction. The lifeline of the facilities have, for the most part, gone under the radar. Five pipelines are currently proposed to go through Los Fresnos to export fracked gas. The largest being Rio Grande LNG’s pipeline(s) called the Rio Bravo Pipeline consisting of two 42-inch diameter pipelines, the largest the industry currently makes. From the north, it runs along 1847, cuts east crossing Hwy 100 only several miles from Los Fresnos High School, then heads to the Port.

The Rio Bravo Pipeline will require eminent domain of approximately 80 landowners in Cameron County alone. Companies, like these, are known to take advantage of landowners by lowballing compensation while knowing that all fracked gas pipelines are subject to leak or explode. A single 42-inch high-pressure pipeline can have a blast radius of half a mile. Major pipeline failures happen every day in the United States, yet the industry claims they are safe.

Accompanying the Rio Bravo pipelines are booster and compressor stations. One compressor station will be located just east of the channel cut, off Hwy 48. This 180,000 horsepower station will comprise of 27 acres in a popular fishing and recreation area emitting volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, and will at times vent methane directly into the air creating a loud noise heard for miles away.

LNG development and their jobs, are not ones of progress. They are not climate solutions and put our health, safety, and environment at risk.

The public will have a chance to voice their concerns regarding Rio Grande’s air emissions at a TCEQ meeting, to be announced in late April or May.

Patrick Anderson
Los Fresnos, TX