The Jersey City Independent "

All photos: Steve Gold

Just feet from where Spectra Energy wants to run a natural gas pipeline through the heart of Jersey City, around 300 residents and public officials gathered in Ferris High School’s auditorium last night to tell the Houston-based energy conglomerate and its federal regulator to find another path.

Mayor Jerramiah Healy led off a list of at least 90 speakers who spoke for a total of four and a half hours. Their comments were nearly unanimous in opposing the pipeline, which would transport natural gas from Staten Island, through Bayonne and Jersey City, to a Con Edison power plant in midtown Manhattan.

“A pipeline of that magnitude is going to create a tremendous disincentive to any private entity to invest in this land,” Healy said. “This is not about money. It’s about safety that we’re all elected for. That’s the main issue we have — to protect our citizens.”

Wednesday night’s meeting was the first opportunity for the public to comment on Spectra’s proposal in front of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the independent body which has sole authority to approve the pipeline’s construction. FERC called the meeting, along with one in Bayonne that took place on Monday, to gather public testimony for its primary study of how the pipeline would effect the environment and public health.

Although Spectra has not filed a formal proposal to build the pipeline, FERC takes testimony on proposed routes and allows companies to consider the first “draft” environmental study before submitting a final proposal to be approved or denied by the commission. A second study, and a second set of public meetings, comes later in the process.

Marylee Hanley, a spokeswoman for Spectra, said the company plans to submit a final proposal to FERC in December.

In the auditorium Wednesday night, the only change Spectra Energy could make to accommodate the crowd would be to run the pipeline up the Hudson River, or not at all.

All but three of the scores of speakers let the company have it, some taunting the silent Spectra Energy men sitting in the front row, others making plain appeals to humanity and reason.

Downtown resident John Thieroff noted that Spectra Energy paid out nearly a billion dollars in dividends last year. He argued that Spectra Energy chose the proposed route only because it was cheaper than running the pipeline elsewhere.

“I can’t imagine why we should have to be put in the position of subsidizing those dividends with our safety,” he said.

Mercer Street resident Anna Fiszman was applauded for asking if Spectra Energy would be required to pay for studies proving the safety of the pipeline, which would have the capacity to move 950 million cubic feet of natural gas each day.

“Would the executives of Spectra be willing to build such a pipeline 600 feet from their home?” she asked.

Gina Ho (at right), who lives within several hundred feet of where the pipeline would snake under Turnpike Extension, tried to engage the Spectra Energy representatives sitting in the front row, who nonetheless sat silently through the procession of speakers.

“What is the value of my children and my families’ lives?” Ho asked, two young children by her side. She waited several seconds for a response. “So they’re willing to run a gas line through our town but they’re not willing to address us when we speak?”

After angry parents and property-owners, Spectra heard a challenge from Marcy Boyle, the senior vice president of the LeFrak Organization, the developer of Newport. Spectra’s proposed route would bring the pipeline right next to the northeast part of that district, running it along property that is extremely valuable to the Queens-based real estate empire.

Boyle (at left) specifically rejected Spectra’s claim that the pipeline would bring jobs and create economic growth in Jersey City. Instead, she said the pipeline could have a chilling effect on the flourishing commercial development along the Hudson.

“The pipeline can do significant damage to the further economic growth of Jersey City,” Boyle said, citing potential commercial tenants who became skittish after hearing about the pipeline.

Longtime Board of Education commissioner and activist Frances O. Thompson (at right) delivered the night’s stemwinder, saying the proposal had a positive, if unintended, consequence: uniting Jersey City’s often balkanized neighborhoods.

“You came to a city that fights,” Thompson said. “[The pipeline] is not a done deal. Jersey City will make sure it won’t happen.”

Jersey City Medical Center President Joseph E. Scott said the risk of running the pipeline so close to the hospital — roughly along Route 78, hundreds of feet from the Grand Street facility — is too great.

“The pipeline’s proposed location runs dangerously close to the Jersey City Medical Center and the critical services our urban community depends on,” Scott said. “Simply put, if a breach to the pipeline were to occur as it did in Edison, New Jersey, on March 24, 1994, and was in close proximity to the Jersey City Medical Center the resulting impact to regional acute health care services and public safety would be catastrophic.”

State Sen. Sandra Cunningham also spoke out against the plan, as did City Council members David Donnelly, Steven Fulop and Michael Sottolano, who appeared late in the meeting after coming straight from the council meeting.

“It is difficult in Jersey City to find an issue that all elected officials agree on,” Fulop said. “This is it.”

Boyle, of LeFrak, also criticized Spectra for going so far into the regulatory process without a firm route. Aerial photographs of the pipeline’s proposed right-of-way depict several possible deviations of hundreds of feet from the company’s preferred route.

Hanley, the Spectra spokeswoman, said the route has changed a number of times, and the company would continue to consider various routes.

Tamara E. Young-Allen, a spokeswoman for FERC, said Spectra was not required to commit to a route until it made a formal proposal to the commission.

“Until they file a formal application, they don’t have to commit to a path,” she said.

Although city officials have asked for extra time to submit comments and testimony for FERC’s initial environmental study, commission documents state the deadline is August 20.

Young-Allen said, however, that the commission will continue to accept public comments until Spectra files its formal proposal.

Information on the proposed pipeline, including all regulatory filings made by Spectra Energy, can be found on the eLibrary section of FERC’s website. The project’s docket number is PF10-17.

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