By Philip Sean Curran
Monmouth County Freeholders urged state regulators March 18 to give the public more time to weigh in on a proposed natural gas pipeline between New Jersey and New York and have a public hearing on the Northeast Supply Enhancement project in the county’s Bayshore region.
By a 4-0 vote, they backed a resolution calling on the state Department of Environmental Protection to take that step, noting the “proposed pipeline traverses Raritan Bay adjacent to the county of Monmouth.” There was a public hearing in Middlesex County the same day as the Freeholders’ meeting, but “there has been no public hearing within the Bayshore,” the resolution read in part.
“Certainly if you have an important, critical hearing such as something like the nature of this, which has great environmental ramifications, …you should have the hearing at a location which is agreeable to the people that are going to be most affected by it,” said Freeholder Lillian G. Burry in an interview with The Two River Times March 19.
Burry, who proposed the resolution, called it “not acceptable” to have a hearing out of Monmouth.
“The people haven’t had an opportunity to let the DEP know exactly how we feel about it,” said Burry, who added she is against the pipeline.
Freeholders want the state DEP to extend the public comment time by 45 days, according to their resolution.
For its part, the DEP said this week that it had extended the comment period until April 17, but that there is no time to have another public hearing given the May deadline to decide the permit application.
Pipeline company Williams Transco, based in Oklahoma, has proposed installing a 23.3-mile-long pipeline in the Raritan Bay to New York, to supply natural gas that comes from Pennsylvania to National Grid, a utility on Long Island. The New Jersey DEP has to decide whether to grant a series of permits for the project, expected to cost around $1 billion.
Other pieces of the project include laying 10.2 miles of pipeline in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and building a compressor station in Somerset County, among other features.
Burry had been in touch with a nonprofit Clean Ocean Action which is opposed to the new pipeline. Cindy Zipf, executive director of the organization, said the fight over the project has been going for the past few years. She said her organization has been contacting local officials in the Bayshore and other nearby shore communities to make them aware. COA representatives spoke at municipal meetings in Keyport, Hazlet and Sea Bright Tuesday night as part of their outreach campaign.
“There’s a lot of ripping up of land, de-forestation, fresh water wetlands destruction,” Zipf said of the proposal. “There’s a 24-mile-pipeline that they’re going to slice Raritan Bay in half to put in and have huge consequences. Most of the people in the Bayshore area that are going to be most affected are kind of in the dark. There was very little outreach, if any.”
For its part, Williams Transco said this week that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the federal entity that regulates pipelines, did an environmental analysis that found the project’s construction and operation would not “significantly affect the environment.”
The pipeline company expects final approval from FERC to come “in a matter of weeks, hopefully,” said Williams Trancso spokesman Chris Stockton.
“FERC has done a pretty through evaluation,” he said.
He said the company had worked closely with the state DEP “throughout this process.”
“They’ve got very clear permit requirements, and we feel like we’ve met those,” Stockton said.
Williams Transco is looking to start the project this fall, he said.
“New Jersey’s going to get a very dirty, very dangerous pipeline system,” Zipf said. The freeholders’ resolution did not take a position either for or against the pipeline itself. But Burry said she did not think New Jersey “really wants this pipeline traversing our boundaries and then in no way benefitting us, if anything maybe having a negative impact.” The proposal has been met with opposition from environmental groups in both New Jersey and New York, states whose governors are pushing to have more renewable energy sources. Gov. Phil Murphy is looking for New Jersey to rely on so-called clean energy, like solar and wind.
To Submit Comments:
Clean Ocean Action says the deadline has been extended to April 17 for residents who wish to submit written comments about the Williams/NESE Pipeline, which can be mailed to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection at these addresses:
Matthew Resnick, Division of Land Use Regulation, Mail Code 501-02A at PO Box 420, Trenton, NJ 08625
Robert Hudgins, Division of Water Supply & Geoscience, Mail Code 401-04Q at PO Box 420, Trenton, NJ 08625
