Gen. Russel L. Honoré was in Lake Charles Wednesday, August 24, to warn against building more LNG export terminals in what he describes as a “hurricane disaster zone.” Honoré said new plants are not only bad for the environment, but these export facilities are contributing to rising electricity and food costs.

Honoré is a retired US Army lieutenant general and best known for his no-nonsense leadership as commander of the joint task force of the US Department of Defense and Federal Emergency Management Agency. Today he leads the GreenArmy, an alliance of groups fighting for clean air, clean water and healthy communities.

Honoré planned his visit to coincide closely with the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Laura, the first of four nationally declared disasters in less than a year.

He linked methane-emitting LNG plants as contributing to increased temperatures in the Gulf, global warming, coastal erosion and disappearing wetlands, saying when a terminal is built, the area if flattened by dozers, the wetlands filled with concrete. Instead of helping mitigate storm surge, it will rush over the concrete as it moves inland.

“LNG plants that are being built in this area are not being built for the good of the United States. They’re being built to sell our natural gas overseas,” he said. “Most of the companies that own these LNG plants are not Louisiana companies. They’re either owned by a bunch of Wall Street tycoons or they’re owned by foreign countries.”

He explained the difference between natural gas and what happens at export facilities – the liquefaction of natural gas for export – and raised his voice to say and then repeat, “We do not use LNG in the United States of America.”

He said the LNG’s industry’s plan to capitalize on the increased global demand for natural gas is driving up the price of natural gas here at home. The cost to heat and cool homes is up. The higher natural gas prices thwart local petro and chemical plant expansion.

LNG plants might bring new jobs, he said, but most of those jobs will be filled with Texas workers. State and local tax breaks given to LNG plants mean less dollars for much-needed infrastructure and education improvements. Digging a deeper channel will increase damage of storm surge into Lake Charles and Westlake where other plants are.

“They suck our natural resources to ship it overseas, and they make big money on it,” Honoré said. “All they want to tell you is how it’s going to improve the economy. Who’s economy? Japan’s? The state of Texas?”

Michael Tritico, Restore Explicit Symmetry to Our Ravaged Earth (RESTORE) drew the connection to LNG exports and rising food costs.

“Methane is used to create fertilizer,” he said. “I’ve calculated – and have been trying to get someone to contradict me for about three years – every shipload (of LNG) that leaves Southwest Louisiana sacrifices 200 million servings of rice. Convert the amount of methane that’s in a ship into fertilizer and that’s how much rice could be grown with one shipment.”

Honoré noted that a horse pasture that cost $500 to fertilize last year, cost $1,100 this year and he can only imagine the impact those prices are having on farmers.

James Hiatt, Bucket Brigade said plans to add more export terminals is “insanity.”

“Sea levels here are expected to rise by two feet by 2050,” he said . That’s information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The report also found that the rise in sea level will have an impact on the frequency of coastal flooding, even in the absence of storms or heavy rainfall.

“What happens in the next four years on this coast will determine what happens on this planet in the next 50 years,” Hiatt said.

“The people in Calcasieu and Cameron can change this,” Honoré said, accusing the police jury in those two parishes of not representing its constituents and sometimes benefiting from contracts with LNG companies.

“The people need to demand that elevation and location and dredging and taking out wetlands need to be considered, and the people need to be heard.”