By Frank Mustac, Special Writer
HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP — A bevy of elected officials, conservationists and citizens group members rallied Monday at the Ted Stiles Preserve at Baldpate Mountain, urging federal and state agencies to deny approvals to build the PennEast pipeline.
The PennEast Pipeline Company announced last week that it had submitted an application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a permit to proceed with construction of the proposed 118-mile-long 36-inch natural gas pipeline that would run from Luzerne County in Pennsylvania near Wilkes-Barre, pass through parts of Hunterdon and Mercer counties in New Jersey and end at a junction with an existing pipeline in southeastern Hopewell Township near Blackwell Road.
PennEast specifically is requesting FERC issue what’s called a certificate of public convenience and necessity. The pipeline company would be not able to break ground for the pipeline project, which is estimated to cost more than $1 billion, before FERC and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection give their formal consent.
PennEast has yet to file permit applications with the DEP, according to Jack Herbert of NJR Energy Resources, a partner in PennEast.
Pipeline advocates, like PennEast Board of Managers Chairman Peter Terranova, during a Sept. 24 media conference call, lauded the benefits of “reduced energy costs” he said the project would deliver to residents and businesses, as well as generate “thousands of good jobs” plus help create a “cleaner environment by cultivating clean-burning American energy.”
Pipeline opponent U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-12, said, “This pipeline is a threat to environmentally sensitive land, water resources, habitat for endangered species and the property of many New Jersey families.”
Rep. Watson Coleman’s comment came from a joint statement prepared by the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association and the Hopewell Township Citizens Against the PennEast Pipeline. All three organizations had representatives at the Monday rally as did the New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club.
The congresswoman attended the anti-pipeline event along with state Sen. Christopher “Kip” Bateman, R-16, and Assemblywoman Elizabeth Muoio, D-15.
At the Monday Hopewell Township Committee meeting, Mayor Harvey Lester said he also attended the protest rally.
PennEast, he said, plans to run a portion of its pipeline through the “pristine majesty” of the Ted Stiles Preserve, which is co-owned by Hopewell Township along with Mercer County, the Friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space and the DEP.
“This time, they (PennEast) don’t want to go underground; they want to put the pipeline above ground,” Mayor Lester said. “Either way, it would be an eyesore, and either way, it would be an unnecessary project.”
The mayor added, “The battle continues, and we will not give in. Our goal is to stop the PennEast pipeline.”
Answering a question during the Sept. 24 media conference call about whether any of the natural gas from the proposed pipeline could wind up overseas, PennEast spokeswoman Patricia Kornick said, the “project is designed to serve local consumers and is not an export project.”
Pipeline gas would go mainly to public utilities and other market-serving entities, such as electric generation companies in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York, Mr. Terranova of PennEast said.
Mr. Terranova also responded to a question about whether PennEast will file eminent domain lawsuits to acquire pipeline rights-of-way from any of the roughly 65-percent of owners of land in New Jersey along the preferred pipeline route who, according to the DEP, have denied PennEast access to survey their properties.
“We’re very early in the process,” he said. “We haven’t begun the actual acquisition of land rights. We will be doing that shortly so we have more conversations to go with the landowners.”
He added, “I would suggest that it’s premature to discuss what the ultimate outcome would be because we’re going to do everything we can to make sure that we reach an accommodation with the landowners that is fair.”
Opponents of the project who organized the rally Monday said the proposed pipeline “would cut a swath through more than 4,000 acres of preserved open space and farmland, 31 of the state’s cleanest and most ecologically significant streams and many private properties and communities.”
“Experts have questioned the need for the PennEast pipeline in New Jersey, noting that it would result in a 53 percent surplus above the current consumption of natural gas,” they said in a statement.
