Anti-gas-line petition circulates in Pennington

Tara Russell says the plan is to continue collecting signatures.

By John Tredrea
   A petition against Elizabethtown Gas Co.’s plans to run a high-pressure underground gas line through the center of Pennington has been signed by nearly 100 borough residents.
   Burd Street resident Tara Russell, one of the group of people collecting the signatures, gave the petition to borough Councilman David Garber during the public comment section of Monday night’s Borough Council meeting.
   After the meeting adjourned, Ms. Russell told the HVN that the plan is to continue collecting signatures.
   Mr. Garber, who vehemently opposes the gas line, heads the borough’s Public Works Committee.
   Elizabethtown spokesman Ron Reisman has said the proposed line through Pennington is not a done deal and is still in the design stage.
   He said the gas company has entertained the idea of running the line through town in order to avoid what he says are the formidable engineering and permitting problems posed by running the line across the railroad bridge on Route 31, just west of the borough.
   Running the line through town would allow Elizabethtown to bypass the bridge.
   Mr. Reisman said a new high-pressure line is needed in Elizabethtown’s regional distribution network to meet the demands posed by recent and expected residential and commercial development. The line would link two Elizabethtown gate stations, which carry gas from the western states. The gate stations are in Ringoes and on Blackwell Road in Hopewell Township, near Pennington.
   If the high-pressure line was run through Pennington, none of the gas in it would be used in the borough. It would just pass through.
   Several months ago, soon after local officials learned of the possibility of a high-pressure gas line running through the center of town, Pennington Council voted unanimously in favor of a resolution opposing the line. Copies of the resolution were sent to Elizabethtown, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, and a number of state legislators.
   Mr. Garber and other borough officials say the proposed Elizabethtown line poses a threat to public health and safety.
   Since the borough first learned of the proposed line, Mr. Garber and other officials have urged Pennington residents to speak out publicly against the gas line and also to express their opposition, in writing, to officials at various levels of government.
   Borough Attorney Walter Bliss has said that, because Elizabethtown is a public utility and all the streets along which the line would run have a utility easement, a groundswell of public opposition to the line might be the best way to stop it.