Company plans to shut down line three to six weeks
By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
A natural gas pipeline that runs through Princeton will be taken out of service for three to six weeks while crews remove rock to lay a new line, although it is not clear to residents or the pipeline company if that process will be completed within that time frame.
Williams, an Oklahoma-based company seeking to start work next May, said that instead of gas running through the 58-year-old pipeline at that time, water would pumped in at between 100 and 800 pounds per square inch. The decision is a reversal of the company’s earlier position, which was to keep the gas running.
Williams now said it would stop running gas through the existing line during the most "intrusive aspects" of installation. Company spokesman Christopher Stockton said Tuesday that the company can’t say for sure, at this point, how long excavation would take.
The company plans to have a subcontractor use a 55-ton rock hammer to excavate the land through the environmentally sensitive Princeton Ridge, where residents have expressed safety concerns in case something goes wrong during the project. The hammer will break boulders and bedrock for a new trench. In more difficult places where the rock is harder, another method of excavation, called grouting, is to be used.
Mr. Stockton said the company has "totally" ruled out using blasting. Williams has pledged other steps that include making sure heavy equipment does not rest on the old pipeline during the project.
But at a public meeting last week, the Princeton Ridge Coalition, a grass-roots organization made up of residents, pointed to the "catastrophic" consequences in the event of an explosion, the effects of which would imperil residents and nearby private schools and likely overwhelm first responders and area hospitals.
Robert J. Goldston, a resident of the Ridge and astrophysics professor at Princeton University, said his side wants to see the line taken out of service during the entire time work is being done, including when the new pipeline is being laid.
"But we don’t know how long the rock hammering will take and it doesn’t include the pipe laying ," he said after a public meeting on the project at the Witherspoon Hall municipal building June 4.
"We consider that it’s dangerous and that their analyses have not convinced us that it’s safe," he said of the pipe-laying part of the job. The company would use a 60-ton side-boom, a machine to install the pipe.
Residents prefer Williams use an alternate route for the new pipeline or the company use horizontal directional drilling — a method that does not involve a trench but rather goes deeper in the ground.
The resident also has raised concerns about the construction contractor that Williams is using, Henkels & McCoy. The same firm was doing work in Ewing in March, when a natural gas explosion occurred and killed one woman.
Mr. Stockton said Williams would have inspectors on site making sure the company is meeting all of Williams’ standards. "We have worked with Henkels & McCoy many times in the past and we have confidence in their ability to safely perform the construction tasks necessary for this project," Mr. Stockton said by email.
Residents will install 32 video cameras at various points along the public right of way to have real-time monitoring and create a record of all the work that goes on at the site.
Williams still needs approval from the Federal Energy and Regulatory Commission before it can start work. Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert attended the public meeting last week and said the town is concerned about the environmental and safety impacts of the project. The town has filed as an intervener in the case, which allows the town to appeal a decision by federal regulators.
Williams and residents worked together. For example, the company agreed to use a narrower work corridor to disturb less natural area within the Ridge. Originally, the company wanted an 80-foot corridor, since reduced to a 50-foot corridor.