Several people were kind enough to send in their own shots of the pipeline route or interesting tidbits near it, and to describe in more detail the areas where the pipeline is proposed to go through.

I’m a bit pressed for time but will link to the pictures for now and give them proper attention when I have a moment!

The pictures can be seen in a special photo album on flickr here

The first two pictures come from Lizzy. The first is a picture of the Delaware River at the approximate pipeline crossing site. The second is a picture of Cook’s Creek, an EV1 (Exception Value) stream the pipeline will be crossing.

The next several stunning shots are from Pat. Pat’s a neighbor of Carla’s on Sanford road. These additional shots of the immediate vicinity where the pipeline was crossing on either the original or new proposed route.

Finally we have the bird pictures. These are from Sharyn Magee, president of the Washington Crossing Audubon Society. These are all copyrighted to her, and are from her breeding bird studies for Cornell Ornithology of Baldpate Mountain birds. These birds habitats are all being threatened by the pipeline route.

Finally, Maureen Syrnick wrote a comment on the pipeline route giving a great deal more detail on the route around Kingwood.

A few comments regarding the route through Kingwood: Starting at Creek Road where the pipeline will cross the Nishisakawick Creek there is a pretty big grove of Hemlock trees as well as other unbelievable native plant with almost no invasive plants or deer damage. NJ Department of Agriculture has spent probably 1 million??or so on developing a beneficial insect program to find an insect that would eat the Woolly Adelgid which had killed off many of the Hemlocks in NJ. Over the years NJ Ag commission did several planned bug releases in West and North West NJ to save the remaining Hemlock trees. The pipeline path will clear cut almost the entire stand of these hemlocks that NJ paid to save.

Further along the pipeline route at the Farm – The driveway into the Farm is a very narrow dirt driveway that runs along the Copper creek which you photographed. This is one of PennEasts planned access roads. The one side of the road is the creek; the other side of the road is rock outcroppings. They plan on developing this very narrow road to bring in equipment and trucks. Totally inappropriate to do any type of road improvement being so close to the creek. To even get into the farm driveway there are 90 turns and very narrow tree lined township roads that are so tight school bus’ cannot drive trough. To get any equipment or trucks back to the Farm, Penn East will have to “improve” these beautiful roads by clear cutting the trees and building up the roads and small bridges somehow. The runoff is going to create major problems along these roads.
At Copper Creek Preserve, which you photographed, the 36” diameter PennEast pipeline will intersect a 30” jet fuel pipeline, a 20” fuel oil pipeline, right under the power lines – all up a steep slope from the Copper Creek.

There are very shallow soils for almost the entire route through Kingwood township, and there is a sole source aquifer that PennEast will have to blast through the entire way. Beside releasing Arsenic from Blasting and drilling the Argillite bedrock into the aquifer, they risk damaging the drinking water for the entire township.

What you cannot see from the road is where PennEast will cross the C1 Lockatong creek 5 times in just one contiguous 1.5 mile long section, clear cutting the entire 300 foot riparian buffer for the whole 1.5 miles. The creek does several “S” turns in this one section. The power lines run through a Solar Farm which JCP&L told PennEast “Not though our Solar Farm”. So PennEast moved the route to where it now clear cuts this 1.5 mile section of our major C1 stream. Much of this section that will be clear cut has Old Growth Forest that has been manages through the New Jersey Forest Stewardship Program to protect the forests.

More when I’ve got the time!

P.S. All of my pictures (with the exceptions of the reader submissions above) are licensed under the Creative Commons License. This means you can use any of these pictures for any purpose and don’t need to ask permission. Just copy, link, whatever, for private, non-profit, or commercial use. I only ask you attribute them back to this blog.