Hey River Folk!
We thought it was about time you all had some solid facts on the new, big pipeline proposed to run through Southcentral Pennsylvania and the Susquehanna Watershed. Here’s what we’re all facing:
The Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline is really the connection of the Central Penn Lines North and South. It would create a shortcut between the existing Transco Leidy Line in Columbia County to our north with the Transcontinental Gas Pipeline in Lancaster County.
More importantly, it is being proposed as a greenfield pipeline, meaning it would create a new Right-Of-Way (ROW), which really means they aren’t planning to use existing pipeline paths and easements, but instead to cut up farmland, properties, and forests for a new route.
What we’ve read in the Notice of Intent to file with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is the following:
- 178 miles long, with at least 2 new compressor stations in Susquehanna and Columbia Counties, Pennsylvania.
- It’ll be an interstate line, meaning it requires a federal certificate of public convenience and necessity from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), as well as state permits from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for stream crossings, and air permits for compressor stations.
What Can You Do? Make Your Voice Heard at Public Scoping Meetings and by Commenting!
The project is currently in the scoping period where regulators seek your two cents before they perform an environmental review document known as an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Williams Representatives have stated that they anticipate filing a formal application within the next 6-9 months. When the official application is filed with FERC, as opposed to the pre-filing currently happening, anyone who is interested can file a motion to intervene in the application.
Below is a spreadsheet with dates & times for public scoping meetings.
These are opportunities to tell FERC what to review during its environmental review process! You have the right under law to tell FERC it should review any issue that is ecological, aesthetic, historic, cultural, economic, social or health related, whether such an issue is directly, indirectly, or cumulatively related to the proposed pipeline!
For example, the following are all legal considerations that you can demand FERC take into account:
Loss of interior forests • Increase of fracking along Atlantic Sunrise route • Increase in gas infrastructure • Future construction of pipelines through this right-of-way (ROW) • Greenhouse gas emissions from Cove Point Export Facility • Health impacts from fracking • Historic sites along the route • Native American sites along the route • Full restoration of ROW including replanting trees • Health impacts from compressor stations • Potential emergency scenarios • Domestic gas prices due to exports overseas • Impacts to Amish community and other constituencies along route • Methane releases due to fugitive emissions along entire route and contribution to climate change • Directional drilling below streams to reduce impacts • Reduction of ROW size • Emotional strain of having a highly pressurized gasline nearby.
You can come to one of the public meetings noted above, or submit any comments online before August 18th by clicking this link and entering in the project name and docket number: https://ferconline.ferc.gov/QuickComment.aspx
Jun 17
Comments on Proposed Chesapeake Bay LNG Export Facility
Letters & Petitions, Official Statements
by LowSusRiverkeeper
On June 16th, 2014 we submitted this technical comment letter detailing why the proposed Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Export Facility in Lusby, MD cannot move forward because of significant flaws in its environmental review.
The comment letter was submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the federal agency with authority over proposals to export and import natural gas. As we’ve discussed in previous posts, FERC is the federal agency that is responsible for assessing the environmental impacts of LNG export proposals pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
The proposal to export LNG from the Chesapeake Bay via the existing, Lusby MD import terminal is bad news for upstream watersheds and communities like the Susquehanna. This is because LNG export from the Chesapeake is specifically tied to development of shale gas reserves like the Marcellus and Utica, shale reserves which underlay much of the Susquehanna River Basin and Pennsylvania.
Development of these shale plays is and continues to occur via the use of hydraulic fracturing, an inherently polluting industrial practice that, in order to extract shale gas, disturbs wide swaths of intact forest, meadow, and farmland, disturbs headwater creeks and vital fisheries habitat, and threatens groundwater supplies with its deep-earth injections. Furthermore, its infrastructure – like new and expanded pipelines, compressor stations, and the like – is already converting valuable cropland and threatening public safety and well-being throughout the downstream Lower Susquehanna. For instance, the proposed, controversial Lancaster Co. natural gas pipelines are part and parcel of helping bring gas from upstream watersheds to the export facility in the Chesapeake.
These and other environmental impacts associated with shale gas development in the Susquehanna and Mid-Atlantic are what FERC’s environmental review should have considered. Unfortunately, FERC has turned a blind-eye to these types of impacts, and refused to consider them as it moves forward in trying to authorize LNG export from the Chesapeake Bay. In fact, FERC not only refused to consider impacts to upstream communities like the Susquehanna, it also refused to even perform a robust study, choosing to perform an abbreviated review – called and Environmental Assessment – instead of a thorough, probing review – called an Environmental Impact Statement.
Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper will continue its strong, science-based advocacy to ensure decisionmakers rightfully consider the full-range of impacts that an LNG export facility in the Chesapeake will mean for upstream communities and watersheds like the Susquehanna.
Tags: chesapeake bay LNG export, comment letter, FERC, LNG export, pipelines Susquehanna, Susquehanna fracking
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