SAVANNAH, Ga. --- Even as two enormous storage tanks are being built to double the capacity of the El Paso Corp.'s liquefied natural gas terminal on Elba Island, a local environmental group continues to call for the facility to move offshore.

The latest concern of Citizens for Clean Air and Water is the proposed siting of the Jasper Port.

Just across the Savannah River from the LNG terminal, where Georgia and South Carolina port authorities have agreed to purchase 1,500 acres, is too close for comfort, said board member Judy Jennings at a media conference Wednesday.

The increased port traffic likely to be generated by a proposed harbor-deepening project also is incompatible with the LNG facility, Ms. Jennings said.

A spill or a release from Elba or from an incoming tanker could put anyone within a mile, or even farther, in grave danger.

LNG is a methane gas cooled to minus-260 degrees, but it will not burn in its liquid state. However, if a ship transporting the substance upriver failed, or the plant was breached, the resulting vapor cloud could spread and ignite.

Citing industry standards from the Society of International Gas Terminal and Tanker Operations, Ms. Jennings said LNG terminals are discouraged from being constructed where vapors from a spill could affect civilians, on long narrow inland waterways, on the outside curve of a waterway, and where they conflict with other current and future waterway uses. Elba flunks on all measures, she said.

"This is, by their own regulations, an inappropriate place for LNG," Ms. Jennings said. "The state can give up the benefits of growing ports, or it can host El Paso and Qatar Gas. The industry itself frowns on doing both."

El Paso spokesman Bill Baerg, reached for comment by telephone, said the Elba facility has met all regulatory standards since it was built in the 1970s, and it continues to do so today.

Though El Paso Corp. is a member of the Society of International Gas Terminal and Tanker Operations, that group is an industry association, not a regulatory body.

Mr. Baerg also countered Ms. Jennings' assertion that Elba, first built in 1978 and then mothballed from 1980-2001, wouldn't be approved to be constructed from scratch today.

"In fact, terminals have been approved and constructed in Texas in areas that would be similar to this situation," he said.

Elba is one of only a handful of land-based LNG import terminals in the U.S.