Check out the new website: http://www.stopthepipelines.org
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders announced his opposition to a new natural gas pipeline project in the northeastern states.
A long-time critic of the Keystone XL pipeline, the Democratic presidential candidate reminded the audience at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Manchester, N.H., that he believes climate change is the greatest challenge facing the U.S.
“And that is why — right here in New Hampshire — I believe the Northeast Energy Direct pipeline that would carry fracked natural gas for 400 miles through 17 communities is a bad idea — and should be opposed,” Sanders said in prepared remarks.
Joan Kager of Stockton does what we all need to be doing. She submits frequent comments on many different subjects & calls ’em as she sees ’em. Her comments are well thought & written – thanks, Joan, for keeping after PennEast!
Here are two recent examples of Joan’s excellent work:
http://elibrary.ferc.gov/idmws/file_list.asp?accession_num=20151123-5036
“Joan Kager, Stockton, NJ.
PennEast is a Limited Liability Company formed for the sole purpose of buying fracked gas in bulk and saving themselves transportation costs by building the infrastructure for the transport, the cost of which will be passed on to their customers. They propose to be in business for 15 years, at the end of which the pipeline will be sold to others. They will not only reap the profits of the sale of the gas but the sale of the pipeline itself, for which the consumers have already reimbursed them. Pretty neat scheme!
In general, LLC’s are formed because they protect the assets of their owners. Damage claims in excess of the company’s assets cannot be charged to the partners. Partners can leave a minimum amount of funds in the LLC and pocket the rest. The partners can only be held responsible if fraud can be proven. The deregulation of the industry in both PA and NJ allowed officers to be compensated individually and profit far and above those officers employed by regulated industries in other states, which encourages more risk taking than regulated industries might not prudently take. According to PHMSA, there are only 90 pipeline inspectors for the entire country. This is unnerving as risks can be taken, corners cut, hazards overlooked for private profit.
Last year, A representative from UGI told us that PennEast’s business plan was to sell the company in 15 years. A representative from PennEast told us that they will provide us with clean water if our wells become polluted. In perpetuity? Will the successor honor the clean water pledge?
Will PennEast carry insurance for damages done? If so, will PennEast be required to have a HOLD HARMLESS clause protecting each and every landowner by name in the policy in case of an accident during and after construction?
When the Marcellus shale runs out as it will, who will then be responsible for the damages to the environment which are sure to be incremental.
The damages that can be foreseen are so great that no amount of time or money can possibly mitigate them. Who is going to compensate the millions of people who rely on our wetlands, streams and rivers for clean water when their water becomes poisoned? Will there be funds to mitigate that?”
http://elibrary.ferc.gov/idmws/file_list.asp?accession_num=20151123-5012
“Joan Kager, Stockton, NJ.
Yesterday, November 20,2015, FERC received and posted a comment which was a form letter from a PennEast proponent. It is Accession Number 20151120-0016. In the right hand corner It was stamped with FERC’s “FILED SECRETARY OF THE COMMISSION, 2015 NOV 20 A11:18 FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION” stamp, and at the top of the page, it was stamped “ORIGINAL”.
Obviously, this letter was sent out with a batch of other letters of the same type from an unknown source with connections to PennEast. The problem with this particular letter is that it is UNSIGNED. There is NO SIGNATURE at all. How many other letters of these mass mailings weren’t signed and does no one look for signatures at FERC’s office before the letter is stamped TWO TIMES? Where is the quality control at FERC? More importantly, does this letter count as another letter in support of PennEast?
PennEast’s minions are sending out bogus letters in support and FERC just rubber stamps everything. Is this an example of how FERC is going to rubber stamp the PennEast Pipeline?”
LYNCHBURG — Roots run deep, and people in areas of Virginia potentially impacted by two proposed pipelines want the federal government to know that cultural resources and historical ties to the land are as important as environmental resources.
They want those values articulated in a Federal Energy Regulatory inventory of the economic, social and cultural impacts that construction might have on “cultural attachment,” described in an analysis prepared for one group as “a social phenomenon that ties people to their physical surroundings and to the landscape around them.”
The potential impacts on what is often called a “sense of place” would be included as part of the environmental impact statements being promulgated as part of the federal approval process for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/60708
The pipeline had been on the cards for a while and had already drawn sharp criticism from traditional owners, landholders and environmentalists.
In early November, Frack Free NT pointed to new data showing there would be an oversupply of gas in coming years. Naomi Hogan of Frack Free NT said on November 3: “The Giles government’s pipe dream is facing an abrupt wake-up call in the face of a gas supply glut around Australia and the world.
“It appears a very risky investment to pour around $1 billion into a gas pipeline that may not have any customers at the end of it.”
Concerned stakeholders vowed to campaign against the pipeline’s construction. Gadrian Hoosan, a Garawa man from Borroloola, said: “We’ll stand together against this pipeline to protect our land and community from the gas fracking explosion this government wants to push onto us.”
“I don’t want to negotiate, I want to say ‘no’. Total ban on fracking, I say.”
Hoosan has first-hand experience of what happens when water is poisoned. He told the meeting: “We’re already dealing with contamination from the MacArthur River [zinc] mine.
“That poison should have stayed at the minesite but now the river is poisoned and we don’t fish there anymore. That was our livelihood and they took it away.”
Other pipeline opponents — environmentalists, ratepayer advocates, landowners — have lawyers working to persuade the state Public Service Board to cancel its approval of the project, the cost of which has grown by $68 million since Vermont Gas’ initial estimate.
That it’s already under construction and has future corporate and community customers lining up doesn’t change the reality: What once looked like a sure thing for Vermont Gas is now in question as the PSB reconsiders its certificate of public good.
http://www.zip06.com/news/20151117/fracked-gas-pipeline-draws-crowd-to-guilford-forum
About 50 concerned citizens attended a forum to discuss plans to run a fracked gas pipeline through towns in Connecticut, including Guilford. The Nov. 11 forum, called the Fracked Gas Pipeline Educational Forum, was held at the Guilford public library and hosted by the Shoreline Group of the Connecticut Sierra Club.
Sierra Club members said there is concern and confusion in town as to the significance of the upgrade to the meter and regulating station in the town. That construction is part of the state- and region-wide expansion of the Spectra-owned Algonquin gas pipeline, which is being expanded in order to transport fracked gas to the coast for export.
This is from a New Hampshire media outlet, but has implications for our area as well. Kingwood has done a fantastic job of asking these types of questions.
Area fire chiefs have become among the latest to lend their voices to a chorus of concern about the proposed Northeast Energy Direct pipeline. Specifically, they say, they’re worried about whether they’d have the manpower and expertise to respond to a potential pipeline-related emergency.
Last month, Fitzwilliam Fire Chief Nancy W. Carney submitted two, page-and-a-half lists of questions and comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission with concerns she has about the proposed pipeline.
Kinder Morgan has had 20 pipeline accidents since 2003 serious enough that they had to be reported to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, according to a February article in the Union Leader. Some of the accidents involved injuries and evacuations, the Union Leader article said.
Troy resident Martin J. Barry, a professional engineer with a doctorate degree whose experience includes investigating accidents caused by construction defects, said a pipeline being co-located under high-tension utility lines, such as what is being proposed for the project, is risky because a spark could cause a natural gas leak to become an explosion.
“The threat of a major leak on any one day on any one mile of a pipeline is pretty remote,” he said.
But, he said, the low statistical risk of a major leak at any given pipeline is increased nationally after factoring in the number of pipelines across the country, and the time frames during which they’ve been exposed to the elements.
Through his work doing post-accident reconstruction, he’s found that rust and corrosion, whether inside or outside a pipe, is what causes it to break, and sometimes soil supporting a line has been washed away, he said.
These factors are consistent with some previous accidents involving Kinder Morgan’s pipelines, he said.
“How long would it be for a response team from Kinder Morgan to arrive to handle an incident with the pipeline is one of my biggest concerns,” Huntoon said. “How long would we have to wait for someone to get there to shut down the line?”
Most Troy firefighters have had training to respond to small leaks involving petroleum liquid and vapor gas, he said, but the pipeline as it is proposed is “bigger than your average household propane unit.”
That size and amount of leak training puts a town like Troy — which already has a tight budget — in a situation of having to pay for the specialty equipment and training it would need to protect its members and the community in the event of an emergency with the pipeline, he said.
http://ecowatch.com/2015/11/12/transcanada-mexico-frack-pipeline/
The company has benefited from Mexico’s energy sector privatization promoted by the U.S. State Department, the same agency that denied a permit to the U.S.-Canada border-crossing Keystone XL. TransCanada said in a press release that construction on the $500 million line will begin in 2016 and it will be called the Tuxpan-Tula Pipeline.
This is not the first pipeline system TransCanada will oversee in Mexico. The company already owns four other systems, with two operational and two under construction. But it is the first pipeline the company will own during Mexico’s energy sector privatization era, a policy in place due to constitutional amendments passed in 2013.
“By 2018, with the Tuxpan-Tula Pipeline, TransCanada will have five major pipeline systems, with approximately US$3 billion invested in Mexico,” TransCanada stated in a press release. “We will continue to pursue additional opportunities for new energy infrastructure projects in Mexico going forward.”
Tuxpan-Tula connects to a series of pipelines originating in Nueces, Texas and eventually crossing the U.S.-Mexico border via the Sur de Texas–Tuxpan gas pipeline, a $3.1 billion project slated to cross underwater through the Gulf of Mexico. The set of pipelines will move gas obtained from fracking in Texas’ Eagle Ford Shale to Mexico’s electricity grid.
As Bloomberg explained in a Nov. 10 article, Mexico’s consumption of U.S. fracked gas will keep the U.S. shale gas industry and fracking afloat during a time of depressed prices on the market.
“That’s the sleeper story,” Richard Ennis, head of natural resources at ING Capital LLC, told Bloomberg. “In Mexico, if you look at how much natural gas they use, it’s tiny. All these new pipelines are going to triple their daily use. It’s pretty dramatic.”
The State Department’s push to privatize Mexico’s energy and electricity sector and the flooding of Mexico with U.S. shale gas fits under the broader umbrella of its Unconventional Gas Technical Engagement Program, formerly known as the Global Shale Gas Initiative
CHESTERFIELD — Opponents of a proposed New Jersey Natural Gas Co. pipeline through northern Burlington, Monmouth and Ocean counties are taking aim at a related gas utility project that calls for the construction of a new gas compressor station off Route 528.
The compressor station is part of Oklahoma-based Transco Williams’ proposed Garden State Expansion project to increase capacity of its existing Trenton-Woodbury natural gas line running from Mercer County south to Gloucester County.
Delaware Township Citizens Against the Pipeline 