Jersey City Board of Education Joins Opposition to Gas Pipeline as Others Push for Public Comment Extension
By Jon Whiten • Aug 2nd, 2010 • Category: Featured, News, Politics
The proposed pipeline route is in black. For more detailed plans, click here.
As the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) prepares to host its first public meeting this week regarding a proposed natural gas pipeline that would run through Jersey City, yet another local institution has come out against the plan.
The Board of Education (BOE) last week filed a letter with FERC stating its objection to the pipeline plan, based on “health and safety concerns.” The BOE joins a number of local officials and groups — including the developers of Newport, Mayor Jerramiah Healy, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, U.S. Rep. Albio Sires and councilmen Steven Fulop and Michael Sottolano — in opposing the plan.
“Natural gas simply does not belong stored in an urban setting,” reads the letter, signed by superintended Charles Epps, “particularly when hundreds of children are concentrated in schools in close proximity to the proposed pipeline.”
According to the BOE, Ferris High School, Dickinson High School, PS 3, MS 4, PS 5 and PS 9 are among the schools that fall within a three-block radius of Spectra’s proposed route. The BOE contends that children attending those schools are not only at risk of a potential natural gas disaster or explosion, but they may be at risk due to ambient environmental toxins — namely fine particulate matter and prolonged low-level gas exposure — created by the pipeline.
“There is reason to believe that the health of the city’s residents and children may be severely compromised by Spectra’s proposed gas pipeline,” the letter reads. “The burden is on Spectra to ensure that close proximity to the proposed pipeline poses no threats to health.”
Meanwhile, recent letters from the city of Jersey City, NY/NJ Baykeeper, and Newport Associates Development are all asking FERC to extend the public comment period for the proposed pipeline.
“For a project this complicated, raising environmental, social and health concerns for so many millions of people, it is striking to me that FERC has decided on such a short timeline between its announcement, its scoping meetings and its comment deadline,” NY/NJ Baykeeper staff attorney Christopher Len writes. “With so many people to alert and so many impacts to consider, FERC would be far better served to announce and pursue an extended scoping period — particularly when so many of the affected are difficult to reach and organize, and many don’t even speak English.”
Spectra has until August 24 to submit revised routes and plans, but the public comment period ends August 20. Reached this morning, FERC spokesperson Celeste Miller says the agency is still reviewing the requests to extend the public comment period, and has not yet decided its response.
In his letter, Newport attorney David E. Pomper says “that timeline puts the cart before the horse,” an opinion echoed by Mayor Healy in his most recent letter.
“It is our position that this project’s current timeline will force the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to make an arbitrary decision, as the commission will not have access to a full set of facts or opinions,” Healy writes. “Jersey City is the second largest city in New Jersey — a city that serves as both the state’s economic engine and the potential host to the majority of this proposed pipeline — and therefore, it is only reasonable that FERC allow Jersey City and her citizens a full and fair forum before it proceeds.”
In one last bit of pipeline news, the City Council is set to vote on a resolution this week expressing its “significant reservations” about the proposed pipeline, and asking Spectra representatives “to appear before the council to address safety concerns.”
The meeting is slated for Wednesday, August 4 from 6 to 10 pm, at Ferris High School, 35 Colgate St. (Spectra will make a presentation at 6 pm; public comment begins at 7 pm.) If you are unable to attend, you can submit comments via the FERC website (docket number is PF10-17). If you want to receive updates from the city on the pipeline (about further meetings and news), you can email pipeline (at) jcnj.org.
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Jon Whiten is the founding editor of the Jersey City Independent; he now works for a public-policy nonprofit in Trenton.
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