BANGOR (AP) – The debate over proposed liquefied natural gas terminals on Passamaquoddy Bay is dividing the fishing community and pitting fishermen on opposite sides.

The LNG terminals, if built, would require tankers to pass through waters that are used by fishermen. Fishermen are expressing varying levels of concern about the degree to which the tankers and terminals would affect them.

“LNG has polarized the entire community and it has also polarized the fishing community,” said Will Hopkins, executive director of the Cobscook Bay Resource Center, a community development organization in Eastport.

Oklahoma-based Quoddy Bay LNG is proposing to build a receiving terminal at the Pleasant Point Reservation of the Passamaquoddy Tribe and an LNG storage facility in nearby Perry. Meanwhile, Downeast LNG of Washington, D.C. is proposing to build a receiving terminal and storage facility in Mill Cove in the adjacent town of Robbinston.

As both companies prepare to formally apply for their projects with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, fishermen are giving consideration to the size of the LNG vessels and the safety and security zone the U.S. Coast Guard places around every LNG tanker traveling in U.S. waters.

Dean Girdis, president of Downeast LNG, said his company will compensate lobstermen who have losses if they lose fishing bottom because of the LNG terminal.

Harry Shain Sr., a lobsterman from Perry who is chairman of the Cobscook Bay Fishermen’s Association, said his group is concerned that LNG tankers will destroy gear and scare away fish. Fishermen also fear that they will lose fishing ground because of the safety zones that are placed around the tankers.

The association has filed two documents with FERC citing its concerns over the LNG proposals.

“I depend on the money from lobstering to supplement my Social Security,” said Shain, who is 73.

But not all fishermen share those concerns.

Gerald Morrison, a herring fisherman from Perry and an Eastport harbor pilot, said that because the safety and security zones move with the ships, they would interfere with fishing activities for only a few minutes at a time. Downeast LNG has told him that they would compensate him for any losses from a weir he operates in Mill Cove.

“We don’t really see an impact as far as the ships go,” said Morrison.

Brian Smith, project manager of Quoddy Bay LNG, said the ships delivering LNG to Pleasant Point would be on a regular schedule that fishermen would be able to work around. He said the company would also like to see established shipping lanes.

But LNG opponents say project developers are downplaying the impacts on fishermen.

“They are trying to convince (the fishermen) that it won’t inconvenience them at all, and it’s not true,” said Bob Godfrey, spokesman for Save Passamaquoddy Bay, an LNG opposition group.

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