The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which licenses all LNG facilities, released the 75-page report May 14. The report did not assess the probability of an accident involving LNG, but did describe hazardous fires that could result from a gash in a vessel transporting LNG.

The public then had two weeks to officially respond to the report.

Comments streamed in from environmentalists, city officials, and project proponents in Fall River, where Weaver's Cove Energy has proposed building an LNG storage tank and dock to unload ships.

Fall River Mayor Edward M. Lambert Jr. argued that LNG terminals and shipping routes should be kept far away from populated areas in light of the report's findings.

Lambert's comments argue that, given the predicted wide scope of a fire from an LNG tanker, an exclusion zone should be required around the ships, prohibiting them from passing by crowded residential areas.

Lambert urges the commission to reject the Weaver's Cove proposal. "FERC should apply the models outlined in the ... report to a variety of worst-case scenarios and not even one of them, as remote as the probability may be determined to be, should be considered an acceptable risk," the mayor wrote.

Scientists also weighed in on the debate -- LNG expert Jerry Havens, of the Chemical Hazards Research Laboratory at the University of Arkansas, looked at the proposed Fall River terminal at Lambert's request.

In his comments, Havens said he could not weigh in as to whether the facility should be built. Rather, he applied the report to Fall River, the country's first urban terminal to be proposed since the terminal in Everett was built in the 1970s.

He said current regulations do not require consideration of incidents involving ships. A gas leak from a ship could be more serious than a similar leak from a storage tank, because the spread would not be contained by a dike or other containment device, and could spread more quickly, Havens said. On the water, a danger zone for fire radiation could extend a mile, with the gas vapor potentially spreading for several miles, he said.

In light of the new report, Havens said the regulatory commission must consider the consequences of on-water spills. He said events could occur that could even exceed those analyzed in the report.

But the report came under attack from terminal developer Weaver's Cove Energy. In an eight-page missive, Weaver's Cove's lawyer's disputed the report's findings, saying the study was incomplete, and exaggerated the potential risks of an LNG fire.

Weaver's Cove's two lawyers from the Washington, D.C., firm of Baker Botts criticized the study for not being peer-reviewed. Further, they said the study failed to consider literature available to the public.

The study failed to take into account the use of double-hulled ships, which reduce the impact of an attack, and keep gas from escaping, the lawyers said. Additionally, the study over-estimated how quickly gas could escape from a tanker, they said.

They also argued that the report exaggerated the temperature of a possible gas fire.

The company asked the regulatory commission to accept companies proposing LNG facilities to enter their own studies for consideration during the application process, arguing that such studies could compensate for what it said were holes in the government report. Weaver's Cove already has commissioned its own safety study.

Although the comments all were entered officially with the commission, they will not be incorporated into the report. Rather, the commission will use comments it finds relevant, in conjunction with the report, in analyzing risk at proposed terminals.