Testing for the LNG docking facility proposed by Weaver's Cove Energy in the middle of Mount Hope Bay, R.I., is scheduled to resume as early as tomorrow after the Conservation Commission ordered a halt to the work.

The commission said it needed to know what was going on, so it issued the cease-and-desist order.

The company, which says it responded to the order by halting work on June 16, submitted a nine-page briefing paper to the town last week. The order was then lifted on Thursday. 

Monday night, representatives of the company went before the commission to answer any questions on the briefing paper.

"We stopped when they told us to, and we're in the process of gearing it back up," said Weaver's Cove president Ted Gehrig.

Christina Wordell, the town's health agent and Conservation Commission clerk, praised the explanation and said the group insisted on the information because residents were asking questions about the testing process that the commission couldn't answer.

"If we had just had a phone call or notice, we wouldn't be here tonight," she told Gehrig.

He promised that the company would do a better job providing information to Somerset, whose waters would house the LNG receiving berth if approved by local, state and federal officials.

But approval is anything but a sure bet. People in the area were steadfastly opposed to Weaver's Cove's initial plan to send tankers up the Taunton River to unload LNG, and they seem just as unhappy with the newer alternative of offloading supertankers in the middle of Mount Hope Bay.

If the alternative proposal is approved, the company plans to send the supercooled fuel through four miles of pipeline, buried in the sediment along the Somerset coastline, to a terminal in Fall River.

But in order to draft its proposal, Weaver's Cove must first assess the potential problems that might go along with anchoring a docking facility and laying the pipeline.

It plans to drill borings at 13 locations; three have been completed.

The drilling, done in water that's about 140 feet deep, goes 10 to 15 feet into the bedrock, said Gehrig. "We're trying to figure out how competent that bedrock is, whether it's cracked."

That work will probably resume next week, he said.

The company is also looking at the biology of the area, assessing the types of fish and shellfish there "so we can make statements about what the relative impact of dredging would be," according to the briefing paper.

Dredging would be needed to bring a supertanker to the berthing site, which would be a mile from any coastline.

That part of the testing could resume tomorrow, said Gehrig

The company is measuring the size and density of the quahog population, under permits issued by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

Weaver's Cove will also be looking at the quality and quantity of underwater life by looking at worms and crustaceans on the sediment.

Shellfish will be sampled at 29 locations in Somerset waters.



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