The Northeast Energy Direct Pipeline would be built alongside the recently approved Constitution Pipeline. It has been proposed by Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, which is a subsidiary of Kinder Morgan.
Environmental groups and community leaders from Schoharie County say the proposal poses a direct threat to hundreds of waterways and several important forest blocks, requires the seizure of private land through eminent domain, and encourages more fracking in Pennsylvania as gas companies take advantage of the increased transportation capacity to export fossil fuels abroad.
The construction of the Northeast Energy Direct Pipeline would connect Tennessee Gas pipelines in Pennsylvania with lines running east to west from central New York to Massachusetts and along the Connecticut border. The proposal is approximately parallel with the proposed route of the 124-mile Constitution Pipeline between Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania and Wright in Schoharie County, which was recently federally approved.
The Constitution Pipeline is considered an "open access pipeline," which means local municipalities, public utilities and other third party providers are permitted to tap the pipeline to offer natural gas service.
Assemblyman Pete Lopez, whose district includes a part of six counties that would be affected by the pipelines, believes the Kinder Morgan pipeline would only create duplication and would cause more controversy and concern among residents.
"It appears to be a gross duplication of the route already approved by the federal government for the Constitution Pipeline," Lopez said.
Lopez, R-Schoharie, last week called on Kinder Morgan to abandon its plans to seek federal approval to build a natural gas pipeline alongside the Constitution Pipeline.
"When I questioned [Representatives of Kinder Morgan] about the duplication, they offered me no real defense," Lopez said. "Their simple answer was that they were in competition with Constitution and that their proposed pipeline would be a feeder line that would provide them with access to low cost shale gas from Pennsylvania which they would then distribute through their existing network."
A third company, Leatherstocking Gas Company LLC, has agreed to install four interconnects along the Constitution Pipeline's route to facilitate local natural gas service. It plans to develop natural gas distribution systems in Central New York where there is no natural gas service.
An example of Leatherstocking's activity is their plan to deliver natural gas service to the Amphenol Corporation, which is located in Sidney in Delaware County.
After the severe flooding in Sidney in 2006 and again in 2011, Lopez pressured the Cuomo Administration put an emergency relief package to keep Amphenol in Sidney. An important part of the package was to secure natural gas from the Constitution Pipeline, which could yield annual energy savings to the company and allow it to provide well-paying jobs to the area as well as helping to stabilize the local and regional economy suffering from recurring floods.
"The Amphenol example has real meaning," Lopez said. "The availability of low cost natural gas will help offset the losses from the floods and offer the potential for real energy cost savings to local businesses, home owners and institutions throughout the region, helping them to be sustainable and continued contributors to the economy and quality of life."
On March 5, Kinder Morgan announced its subsidiary, Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, has finalized plans for its anchor shippers for the market path component of the proposed Northeast Energy Direct Project.
"We are pleased that a broad range of New England market participants have declared, through binding contractual commitments, the clear need for an expansion of TGP to provide a transformative solution to reduce energy costs and enhance gas and electric reliability in New England," said KMI East Region Natural Gas Pipelines President Kimberly Watson.
On the other hand, studies show a lack of existing pipeline capacity was not the cause of last year's high energy prices in the northeast. A 2015 U.S. Department of Energy study shows 46 percent of U.S. pipeline capacity is unused. Some experts believe more pipelines are not the solution to high energy costs in the state.
"It's shameful that Kinder Morgan is proposing this pipeline in light of the cumulative impacts it will have on our communities and environment," said Wes Gillingham, a co-founder and the program director of Catskill Mountainkeeper, an environmental advocacy organization.
"It's outrageous and unacceptable that the FERC continuously rubber stamps these projects, effectively aiding and abetting the fossil fuel industry and failing in its responsibility to safeguard our communities and natural resources. We don't need new pipelines. We need a fossil fuel freeze, now," Gillingham added.
During a rally last week, opponents of the proposal said it would carry many of the same risks as fracking itself does, including the harmful effects of air and water contamination. Speakers including anti-fracking activist and filmmaker Josh Fox, and also featured information such as the unsafe and toxic aspects of fracked gas, the risks of inevitable pipeline accidents and the notion that New Yorkers should not allow fracked gas to be transported across the state.
"It is official New York state policy that fracked gas is bad — bad for public health, bad for the environment, bad for everyone," Fox said. "We should extend the same moral and legal protections to our fellow citizens in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and points west by stopping the ridiculously named 'Constitution Pipeline' and asserting our right to a clean future without fossil fuels or the human right violations that their extraction causes."
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