Special session at Justice Center in Lambertville
By John Tredrea, Special Writer
The New Jersey Sierra Club and Delaware Riverkeeper Network, which are scathingly critical of a proposed natural gas pipeline that would go through Hunterdon and Mercer counties, will join the Lambertville Public Library in hosting an informational meeting on the matter on Monday, Sept. 15, at 7 p.m. in the Pittore Justice Center at 25 S. Union St., Lambertville.
The forum would focus on the proposed PennEast Pipeline and what the project means to New Jersey.
The pipeline would cut through Hunterdon and Mercer counties, entering New Jersey just south of Phillipsburg after crossing the Delaware River, said Jeff Tittel, chapter director of the New Jersey Sierra Club .
"The pipeline would carry gas produced from Marcellus shale through fracking, contributing to major pollution and climate change impacts," he said.
"We are concerned about the impact this would have on the Delaware River," said Mr. Tittel. "The PennEast project would install over 100 miles of 30-inch pipeline across the region. This is the eighth pipeline to be proposed across New Jersey in the last five years. There may be a need for one or two, but not eight."
Mr. Tittel added: "There is no need for this pipeline other than to promote fracking and the burning of fossil fuels that impact clean water and promote climate change. Pennsylvania gets the money, New York gets the gas, and we get the pipe. This line not only threatens the neighborhoods it passes through but threatens our environment. This pipeline is going to go through environmentally sensitive areas, creating an ugly scar, adding to pollution and putting people at risk."
Maya Van Possum of the Delaware River Keeper Network said: "The PennEast pipeline, if approved, would cut a devastating path through our communities, our wetlands, our creeks, our properties and our communities. And when I say they will be cutting through our communities and environments, I am being literal — they literally cut a path through creeks, through forests, through wetlands, through public and private lands and leave lasting and irreparable damage behind.
"There is increased runoff and pollution that results during and after construction and our landscapes, wetlands and waterways become irreparably altered as a result of their construction practices and over-wide rights of way that are put permanently in place.
All of this damage is intended to service the other devastating industry — the drillers and frackers of shale gas — a polluting fossil fuel that is contaminating air, water, landscapes and damaging the lives and health of people wherever it happens and is going to exacerbate climate change bringing increased droughts, floods and other harms in both the present and future. So this Penn East project is in and of itself harmful and is being put in place to support and expand another damaging and harmful industry, that of shale gas development."
PennEast says it’s still unknown exactly where the pipeline will run.
"Because this project is in the earliest stages of development, the exact route of the proposed pipeline hasn’t been finalized yet," said Patricia Kornick, spokeswoman for the PennEast Pipeline Company. She said the route the pipeline would follow will be chosen after PennEast confers with "the stakeholders involved — landowners and regulatory agencies."
She said PennEast will be conducting preliminary engineering studies in the months ahead and plans to file an application for the project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. "If all local, state and federal approvals are made in a timely manner, construction of the pipeline could begin 2017," she said.
The pipeline would carry natural gas released from the Marcellus shale region of Pennsylvania. The line would run from Luzerne County, near Wilkes-Barre, in northeastern Pennsylvania to Transco’s Trenton-Woodbury connection. PennEast is investing nearly $1 billion in the project, Ms. Kornick said.
John Walsh, president and CEO of UGI Corporation, which is affiliated with PennEast on the pipeline project, said: "In response to the abundant supplies and low price of natural gas, customer demand has increased significantly. This project serves to meet that growing demand in the mid-Atlantic marketplace."
"Safety will be the primary concern in our assessment of the issue of where the pipeline should go," Mr. Kornick said. "Environmental, cultural and archaeological issues will be in the forefront as well."

