How safe is Providence’s port?
For decades ships carrying volatile products like gasoline, home heating oil and liquefied petroleum gas have sailed up Narragansett Bay to unload their cargoes without major incident at the Port of Providence, one of the Northeast’s busiest deep-water ports.
Shell, Sprague and Exxon-Mobil oil companies operate fuel terminals and keep massive storage tanks at the port. And since the 1970s, National Grid has stored liquefied natural gas, which arrives by truck at the port’s Fields Point waterfront.
Clara Decerbo, director of the city’s Emergency Management Agency, says “we have a very active port,” and what comes in and is being stored there “is something we are absolutely paying attention to.”
“We have a lot of protocols and laws in place that would prevent something like what happened in Beirut from happening here,” she said.
Any location that is storing a controlled or hazardous substance must comply with state and federal reporting laws or face “very significant fines,” she said. “I can assure you that any hazardous substances are subject to reporting.”
Further, inspectors with the Department of Environmental Management perform spot inspections looking for noncompliance, she said.
The port and its various businesses also participate in annual emergency disaster training.
In 2018 federal regulators approved National Grid’s plan for a plant on site that will liquefy natural gas coming in from a nearby pipeline for easier storage in an LNG tank.
The processing plant was opposed by environmental advocates, nearby residents and a slate of politicians on safety and environmental grounds.
But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded that “our approval of this proposal would not constitute a major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.”
Patrick Chaney, National Grid’s manager of the $180-million project, said Friday that “We are building this plant to be as safe 25 years from today as it is now.”
The processing plant is expected to be completed by the end of 2021.
tmooney@providencejournal.com
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On Twitter:@mooneyprojo
