Local Pols Line Up Against Gas Pipeline as Public Meetings Get Underway
By Shane Smith • Mar 4th, 2010 • Category: Blog, News, Politics
Mayor Healy has recently been joined by other local elected officials in opposing a natural gas pipleline extension being proposed by Spectra Energy. The path of the pipeline, which would add about 16 miles of new pipeline to two of Spectra’s existing lines in the region, would bring up to 800 million cubic feet of natural gas per day to Con Edison customers in Manhattan.
In a January letter to Sen. Robert Menendez, Healy opposed the extension “in light of the potential hazards that it may pose upon completion.” Saying that the line “would run through some of Jersey City’s most densely populated neighborhoods,” Healy also noted that the line poses a hazard to some critical local infrastructure, including the New Jersey Turnpike, PATH train, Holland Tunnel, Hudson-Bergen Light Rail and “many global financial institutions.” Healy expressed concern that “the line would also increase the vulnerability of Jersey City as a potential target for terror attacks.”
Recalling a 1994 natural gas pipe explosion in Edison that damaged several apartment buildings and left many homeless, Mayor Healy concluded that “the risks posed [by Spectra's proposal] greatly outweigh any potential benefits to Jersey City.”
New Jersey’s senior senator, Frank Lautenberg, agrees. After a February gas pipeline explosion in Middletown, Conn., Lautenberg issued a press release warning that the event “raises a red flag” about the Spectra line, which he noted “would run through New Jersey primarily for the benefit of New York.”
Ward A councilman Mike Sottolano and Ward E councilman Steven Fulop — who hails originally from Edison — also oppose the Spectra plan. “This is not a good thing for Jersey City,” Fulop tells JCI. Sottolano says that the administration is “lobbying” New Jersey’s federal legislators to make sure that the pipeline “never happens.”
Spectra will be holding several informational meetings for area landowners in the coming weeks. The first of these was held last night at Liberty House restaurant in Liberty State Park. Sottolano, who attended the meeting, tells JCI that while “a large number of Spectra people” were in attendance, he “did not see too many residents.” As a potential explanation for the seeming lack of resident interest, Sottolano cited an incorrect address listed for Liberty House in the notification letter he received this week. The address of Liberty House — 82 Audrey Zapp Drive — was listed as 100 Dudley Street in the letter. Sottolano calls the error “a little disingenuous.”
According to Marylee Hanley, Spectra’s director of stakeholder outreach, the proposed path of the pipleine is only a proposal. “We are in the very preliminary stages,” she says. Hanley notes that the purpose of the public meetings being held is to elicit feedback and comments from local landowners, and they “will incorporate those” into their study, which will be filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by the end of June. Spectra expects to begin construction in the first quarter of 2012, so a finalized route will be determined before that time.
The next meeting in Jersey City will take place Tuesday, March 9 from 6 pm to 8 pm at P.S. #9 (222 Mercer St.). The meeting is open to the public. Other meetings will be held in Bayonne and Linden between now and March 17. Meanwhile, longtime community activist Dale Hardman has organized a Google Group for concerned residents — you can find out more here.
Like what you've read here? Please consider making a donation or becoming a sustaining member. As a grassroots news organization, we rely on community support -- as well as paid advertising -- to survive.
Shane Smith is the managing editor of Jersey City Independent.
Email this author | All posts by Shane Smith
