Township Committee members in Upper Freehold Township are encouraging residents to voice their concerns about a proposed natural gas pipeline at a public hearing to be held by the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU).
At the committee’s July 9 meeting, residents who live near Province Line Road in Upper Freehold expressed frustration with a revised route that shows a pipeline proposed by New Jersey Natural Gas (NJNG) traversing their road. The residents said they are worried the pipeline will have a negative impact on the environment and on the value of their property.
Representatives of the BPU will accept public comment on the Southern Reliability Link pipeline project during hearings that will be held at the Manchester Township municipal building, 1 Colonial Drive, Manchester, at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. July 28.
“Even if the pipeline never explodes, the immediate impact is equally important,” said Barbara Fox Cooper, who lives at the corner of Hutchinson and Province Line roads.
According to Cooper, NJNG’s requirement of visible access from a helicopter to the pipeline will require the removal of trees and severe alterations to the landscape.
“It means those trees are going to die and it also poses a risk of them falling on my home because of the proximity of my house. It will also be a financial expense to have them removed as they die and it removes the private setting I have along the road,” she said.
Cooper also expressed concern about the disruption and uprooting of wetlands along her property and Province Line Road, which she said will remove frogs, turtles and blue heron “that keep the mosquito population to zero.” Other residents echoed what Cooper said about the latest route through Upper Freehold that NJNG has proposed as part of the 30-mile-long natural gas pipeline. They suggested that alternate routes might be more conducive to the project.
Municipal officials said the pipeline is not welcome in Upper Freehold, but they said they were constrained by state law to comply with the proposal.
“When you talk about environmental habitat, it is the state Department of Environmental Protection that has jurisdiction over those habitats,” Township Attorney Dennis Collins said.
“We modified the road opening permit (ordinance) to make it as difficult and expensive as possible to be compliant with the law, but there are many other agencies (involved). Those agencies are also some of the excuses NJNG gives against routes, saying, ‘we would have to go through the Pinelands and we will never get approval from the Pinelands Commission,’ ” Collins said.
In 2014, NJNG introduced a plan to build a 30-mile-long, 30-inch-diameter high-pressure gas pipeline from Chesterfield, Burlington County, to Manchester Township, Ocean County, crossing parts of Upper Freehold Township, Jackson and Plumsted.
In Upper Freehold, the Township Committee adopted an ordinance to prohibit road excavation since it did not directly benefit the township. NJNG sought legal recourse after asserting it was beyond Upper Freehold’s jurisdiction as a municipality to claim authority over road opening regulations.
“The state took away local control of public right-of-ways as it relates to utilities. It created the BPU, which supercedes local regulation,” Collins told those in attendance at the meeting.
Officials subsequently amended the road opening ordinance and the route for the pipeline was altered.
“You are required, if you object to the route proposed, to designate a practical, alternative route in your community. There was discussion because Province Line Road is only half in Upper Freehold,” Collins said.
The amended route will connect to Province Line Road and Monmouth Road (Route 537) in Upper Freehold Township. It will follow Hornerstown Road, Pinehurst Road (Route 539), Lakewood Road (Route 528), Fischer Road and West Colliers Mill Road through Plumsted before it enters Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
“There was action that had to take place and we were (bound by) certain limits in what we were allowed to do,” Committeewoman LoriSue Mount said.
The committee members encouraged the residents to provide their perspective to the BPU.
Collins said the BPU will make the final determination regarding the route of the natural gas pipeline.