As director of Waterspirit, a program committed to informing, inspiring and enabling people to become more aware of the importance of water and watersheds as primary resources of the earth, Sister of St. Joseph of Peace Suzanne Golas is regarded as someone who brings a wealth of information to any public forum on the environment.

Some of those forums are lofty. Consider for instance, the 2002 U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa where she was a participant.

Some of the forums are town meetings, parish programs and school assemblies and, as good fortune would have it, many of the later take place in the Trenton diocese.

For, as good fortune would have it, Waterspirit is headquartered at Stella Maris Retreat House, Elberon, making it geographically easy for her to bring that knowledge to the table at diocesan parishes and schools.

She’ll be doing just that in St. Mary Parish, Colts Neck, Feb. 18 at 7:30 p.m. There, she’ll be part of an informational program on proposals to set up facilities in the ocean, a few miles off the Jersey shore which would receive liquid natural gas from the Middle East and Russia.

To date, there have been three proposals to construct liquefied natural gas terminals off the Jersey coast. Liberty Natural Gas Transmission, a joint venture between Canadian Superior Energy and Global LNG, would consist of an underwater facility that would receive natural gas from transport ships. It is designed to provide up to 2.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day by 2011.

Exxon Mobil is proposing to build a $1 billion floating terminal about 20 miles off the coast of Asbury Park and Atlantic Sea Island has proposed a $1.7 billion terminal on a 62.5 acre artificial island 19 miles east of Sandy Hook. Supporters say the projects would provide a new source of fuel to a region where rising demand and scarce supplies have led to big spikes in electric and home heating bills.

But similar proposals have run into strong opposition from conservation groups and various states. A proposed liquefied natural gas terminal in Long Island Sound was recently rejected by both Connecticut and New York while another proposed terminal in the Delaware River in South Jersey has been blocked by officials.

When Sister Suzanne speaks on the proposals Feb. 18, expect a negative reaction as well.

She’ll be sharing the podium with David Byers, attorney for Clean Ocean Action. “I’ll be focusing on the spiritual reasons for caring for the environment and why it is important to protect the ocean from such facilities,” said Sister Suzanne, one of five recipients of the diocesan 2008 Gaudium et Spes Award for faithful service to ministries of charity and justice.

As always, she will stress the need to preserve the precious resource of water.

“We don’t need a facility like that to begin with,” she said during a recent interview. “What we need to do is begin our future by ending our dependence on fossil fuel. We need to be trying to move away to different energy sources and not use energy that causes green house gases.”

Marie Savoia, who has been one of the leaders of the environmental committee at St. Mary Parish since it began in the early ‘90s, said the program, to be held in Madonna Hall, is open to the public. “We’re inviting all the local parishes,” she said. “We’d like to have a large turnout.”

Sister Suzanne, she said, is always very well versed on the issues and brings a spiritual perspective that enhances such presentations on a parish level.

It’s a level Sister Suzanne really enjoys. “I go out to parishes as often as I can,” she said. “I also do a lot of civic programs and of course, I do a lot of school programs in the Trenton, Newark and Metuchen Dioceses.

“Actually, Waterspirit got a grant with a sizeable amount allocated for presentations at inner city high schools. We bring the young people to Stella Maris on the beach so they can actually see and experience the water.

“We have done a variety of things for the public, sometimes an evening devoted to a particular topic or a reflection day or an evening reflection.

We always try to combine the problem and the solution,” she said.

Sister Suzanne said she considers the Waterspirit ministry an example of how people of faith can devote themselves to being good stewards. “People of faith have a deeper reason for being concerned about the environment and wanting to work with these issues.

“We understand creation as a revelation of God. We understand the source and sustainer of life and we know … that if we mess it up, we are contaminating an expression of God.”