WASHINGTON (June 27, 2024) – Right now the Federal Power Regulatory Fee (FERC) permitted the most important liquefied pure fuel export terminal in america, Enterprise International’s Calcasieu Cross 2 (CP2) facility, to be in-built southwest Louisiana. The footprint of the proposed facility would destroy habitat that helps the Japanese Black Rail, a hen subspecies listed as threatened underneath the Endangered Species Act.
“This undertaking could have detrimental impacts to our local weather, in addition to to threatened birds like Japanese Black Rails and the wetlands and communities of the Louisiana coast,” mentioned Sarah Rose, vice chairman of local weather on the Nationwide Audubon Society. “Audubon is deeply involved in regards to the disruption this facility poses to the area’s pure ecosystem, elevated public well being dangers, local weather air pollution, and lack of habitats that birds and folks depend on.”
The Japanese Black Rail nests only some inches above the bottom, which suggests they’re significantly inclined to results of local weather change resembling sea-level rise, excessive tides, and excessive storms. Over time a lot of their salt marsh habitat has been transformed for human makes use of. Due to this unchecked improvement, in the present day there are solely 900 to 2700 people left throughout the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.
In January, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service discovered the CP2 undertaking’s operation might hurt as many as 100 Japanese Black Rails, representing 6 to 7 p.c of the overall threatened inhabitants and probably over half of the overall inhabitants in Louisiana.
Over the past a number of years, Audubon Delta has repeatedly raised alarm bells with allowing authorities on the state and federal stage over the location of a number of liquefied pure fuel export terminals alongside Louisiana’s Gulf Coast and its impacts to critically vital coastal habitat. Moreover, Louisiana has additionally invested thousands and thousands in ecosystem restoration as a part of the $50 billion Coastal Grasp Plan, and the ecological injury this undertaking would trigger will undermine that work.
###
About Audubon
The National Audubon Society protects birds and the locations they want, in the present day and tomorrow. Audubon works all through the Americas utilizing science, advocacy, schooling, and on-the-ground conservation. State applications, nature facilities, chapters, and companions give Audubon an unparalleled wingspan that reaches thousands and thousands of individuals every year to tell, encourage, and unite numerous communities in conservation motion. A nonprofit conservation group since 1905, Audubon believes in a world wherein folks and wildlife thrive.
Contact: Rachel Guillory, rachel.guillory@audubon.org
