A federal fisheries agency director says it could take the rest of the year to complete the endangered species review of the Bradwood Landing liquefied natural gas project.

If so, that would throw off the latest timeline proposed by project backer NorthernStar Natural Gas Inc. of Houston. Company executives said they were expecting to clear the last of their regulatory hurdles by summertime and begin construction later this year.

Kim Kratz, director of National Marine Fisheries Service’s Oregon State Habitat Office, sent a letter Thursday asking project developer, NorthernStar Natural Gas Inc., and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the ultimate authority on LNG licensing, for a deadline extension.

Because of the size and complexity of the development, he wrote, his agency expects to finish the biological opinion on the project’s impacts to threatened and endangered species before Dec. 31.

NMFS is tasked with deciding whether the Bradwood facility, proposed for a site 25 miles east of Astoria on the Columbia River, would jeopardize fragile salmon and steelhead species listed under the Endangered Species Act. One of the chief complaints of project opponents is that the LNG terminal would destroy valuable salmon habitat.

Researchers for NMFS have been sampling fish at Bradwood for almost a decade and have documented an abundance of juvenile salmon at the site that could be harmed by the project’s 45 acres of dredging and billions of gallons of ballast water intakes for LNG delivery tankers at the terminal.

Kratz said additional time is needed because the Bradwood project is the first LNG terminal his agency has ever reviewed for the region. He also cited the number of affected species, the amount of information provided, the time needed to consult with tribes and gaps in modeling information on the project as reasons the review will take so long.

Federal fisheries and energy regulators disagreed in January about how long the endangered species review should take.

NMFS had delayed the review initially because of missing information. But in January, FERC asked the fisheries regulator to start its review without the additional data and finish the job by March 8.

Cathy Tortorici, Northwest division chief for NMFS, said her agency wouldn’t be required to meet that deadline and would likely take more than the standard 135 days to finish the review because the project is so complex.

In September 2008, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission conditionally approved a license for the $650 million Bradwood Landing project. The state of Oregon, the LNG opposition group Columbia Riverkeeper and NMFS all sided against the approval, and filed a lawsuit arguing FERC made the decision prematurely – before the company had obtained the required permits from state agencies and the fisheries service.

But last month the fisheries service dropped its case against FERC, after agreeing in January to begin its review of the project’s impacts to endangered species.

One of the conditions of FERC’s approval was that before project construction can begin, NorthernStar would need a biological opinion from NMFS confirming that the project will not jeopardize threatened or endangered species such as Columbia River salmon and steelhead.

Opponents say the Bradwood site is an invaluable salmon nursery and that developers cannot make up for the negative impacts of building an LNG terminal there. But project backers say their mitigation and salmon enhancement plans are so robust they will actually create a net benefit for fish in the river.

The biological opinion is designed to be the final word in that dispute, and NMFS has been collecting data on the issue for years.

In November, the agency claimed it still didn’t have all the information needed to initiate consultation and listed more than 150 information gaps that needed to be filled in. In January FERC natural gas division director Lauren O’Donnell responded by asking NMFS “to complete its analysis with the information available” within a 90-day statutory deadline.

Bradwood submitted additional information Dec. 31 and again in early January.

In his letter sent Thursday, Kratz asked FERC and NorthernStar to respond to his request for additional time within 30 days.

“It is not uncommon for agencies to request additional time to review an application,” said NorthernStar spokesman Charles Deister. “Though NMFS has requested additional time to prepare its biological opinion, both FERC and Bradwood must agree to any extension beyond the statutory limit. We will be meeting with NMFS and FERC in the coming weeks to discuss the request and will continue to work cooperatively with both agencies.”