Tonight at 7pm, WACAP meeting open to all (you don’t have to be a resident!).
West Amwell Municipal Building
150 Rocktown Lambertville Road
Lambertville, NJ 08530
We’ll be discussing where we’re at in the permitting process, impacts of the presidential election on the process, recent victories, and what we can say and do during the 30 day comment period that ends December 5th.
Come join us!
For those who can’ make it, here is a copy of the presentation:
So yesterday happened. No matter who you voted for yesterday, we’re looking at a very different world coming at us today. There are many unknowns going forward, and I know many people out there are depressed, dazed, confused and hurting. Others are celebrating, some with unbridled zeal, others with a hint of restraint along the lines of “OMG, this is real now…”.
Locally, I cheered to see Rich, Cally, and Hoyer sweep all three West Amwell Township seats, proving that West Amwell can’t be bought for $45,000. And I was very upset to see Kristin McCarthy lose in Delaware Township by just a few percentage points, victim of a last minute smear campaign by her opponent. And Peter Jacob lost, but still ran a remarkable race with zero corporate donations against Leonard Lances $600k+ in money from special interests.
On the National level, a Trump Presidency is going to make things very difficult for those opposed to fossil fuel infrastructure. But all is not lost. Instead, it means we’re all going to have to hunker down and take a careful look at our respectful strategies. FERC has opened up a new 30 day comment period on the project and also pushed the Final EIS date back two months, so we have gained valuable time to regroup.
As I’ve mentioned before, FERC is down to only three commissioners. The timing of the Final EIS being moved along with a final decision date in May, 2017, may have been partially a ploy by the three commissioners to avoid making a decision until more are appointed by the next President.
Now with as Trump President-elect, we pretty much know where that is headed now. This opens the doors for 2 commissioners to be appointed by Trump that could additionally weigh in on PennEast. The way FERC was setup, only 3 commissioners can be the same party as the President. We currently have Norman Bay, Cheryl LaFleur, and Colette Honorable as commissioners, which are all Democrats. This leaves two Republican nominations from Trump immediately, and then a third when Colette Honorable’s term is up June 30th, 2017.
I think it’s pretty plain what FERC will do under Trump.
So we’d have to rely on the courts instead, who I suspect may be getting a whole lot of cases over the next four years, and other agencies to fight pipeline infrastructure.
The EPA and other agencies have been pushing hard against FERC the past year, and we’ve seen delays coming about because of it, and FERC was showing signs of giving into the EPA in some areas. How the EPA will act under a Trump administration is another question altogether. The same is true of Fish & Wildlife and other Federal agencies. What happens to them under Trump could have a profound impact on environmental policy for a very long time.
A bright spot here is that the States remain the stewards of the Federal Clean Water Act, and in NJ the DEP is responsible for both the 401 Water Quality Certification as well as the 404 wetlands one. Even under Trump, NJDEP could potentially stop PennEast and other projects cold. Let’s look at that for a moment.
Right now, the battle in NJ against pipelines is extremely fierce, and many battles are being won by opponents. While the Christie administration’s appointees have been trying to maneuver around the law to get projects approved, opponents have started to learn how to counter that. Recently NJ Sierra Club won a case where the administration tried to sneak the BL England pipeline project through without approval from the Pipelines Commission. The courts have ordered that the Commission has to review the project and can’t be circumvented. This approach will likely be brought against the Southern Reliability Link as well. Both are critical to success for the PennEast owners in regards to PennEast.
In addition, opposition continues on the Garden State Expansion’s 404 wetlands permits. Unprecedented numbers of people turned out in opposition of it, and the project is getting delayed repeatedly. The GSE is the link between PennEast and the Southern Reliability Link. Without it, a huge blow would be struck against New Jersey Resources, the largest shipper on PennEast and 20% owner.
There is also the DRBC and other regional agencies that may be influenced below the Federal Level.
What this means to me is that while we may face increased difficulties at the Federal level, the State level may see intense and increased scrutiny and opposition. There is also the question of what happens to Christie now that Trump has been elected. Unless Bridgegate has fatally killed his career entirely (a possibility), Christie could well be leaving us New Jersey residents for the national stage. If that happens the calculus in NJ opposing pipelines could change for the better.
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Yesterday I went out on a limb and predicted that the FEIS would be delayed at least 60 days. For a lot of reasons – because of the new 30 day public comment period announced last week, the document filed yesterday by FERC asking PennEast for answers to 46 complex questions, and the general pushback from many government agencies against FERC.
I’m happy to say I got lucky on this one, and today FERC officially announced the Final EIS will be delayed by 60 days. Read it here:
http://elibrary.FERC.gov/idmws/file_list.asp?accession_num=20161108-3025
The Notice looks like it was rushed out the door and is full of errors and inconsistencies. I think FERC is really feeling the heat on PennEast and other pipelines, and we’re seeing them crack under pressure. The notice says:
This notice identifies the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or Commission) staff’s revised schedule for the completion of the environmental impact statement (EIS) for PennEast Pipeline Company, LLC’s (PennEast) PennEast Pipeline Project. The first notice of schedule, issued on March 29, 2016, identified December 16, 2016 as the EIS issuance date. Based on new route modifications filed by PennEast. The Commission staff intend to issue a notice to newly affected landowners. Commission staff has therefore revised the schedule for issuance of the final EIS.
As you can see it resembles English but has some issues when you look more closely. The actual schedule is listed below that, and says:
Issuance of Notice of Availability of the final EIS: February 17, 2017
90-day Federal Authorization Decision Deadline: May 18, 2017
This is great news for us. Everything is now pushed back a minimum of two more months, and given timing of various activities that are constrained due to environmental issues, this could be another 6 month or a year delay.
Remember, PennEast originally thought they’d already have a Certificate by now. Now it’s pushed off at least six months from now.
I think it also may not be a coincidence that this dropped on Election day in the United States. FERC is down to only 3 commissioners (of their usual 5), and those three people must really feel the pressure. I’m guessing they’re going to wait until they have a new President installed and some new members appointed before they make a decision.
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Low-brow politics isn’t unique to any given party, and certainly isn’t confined to just our little race in West Amwell Township. Here in West Amwell we have a group of Democratic challengers who are using smear tactics and barrels of union money to try to force their way into the Township Committee. In Delaware Township, it looks like smear tactics are alive and well, there too, but with the parties reversed.
A friend sent me this flyer today that’s been mailed throughout Delaware Township.
I met Kristin McCarthy through the PennEast pipeline fight, we’ve worked together in a number of different areas to beat this project, our Citizens Against the Pipeline groups have worked together with other CAPs to bring grassroots organization together. I’ve seen first hand her passion and commitment to beating this thing, and knowing her personally I find this brochure to be appalling. The number of misleading, inaccurate, and exaggerated things on this brochure are simply astounding.
It is extremely well known why Kristin dropped out of the Township Committee Race. She did it because she felt she needed to devote 100% of her available time to fighting the PennEast pipeline. The pipeline came out of nowhere and turned all our lives upside down, and Kristin made a brave choice to push politics aside and do what was right – fight for the rights of Delaware Township residents against PennEast and FERC.
Calling her a “Quitter”? Making it sound like she ran away from her candidacy capriciously? Saying she “Let us down before”.
It’s all wrong, it’s all misleading, and people of Delaware Township shouldn’t believe it for a second.
The reality is that Delaware Township has been the epicenter of the effective resistance against PennEast and the CAP organizations. DTCAP has been a hellaciously effective organization against PennEast. They organized with astonishing rapidity, picked up speed and never looked back. And Kristin was key in making that happen. EVERYONE who is working hard against PennEast knows Kristin by sight and by name.
You guys – Delaware Township – are where so much of the fight against PennEast originated, and Kristin is one of the key people that made it happen. And the only way she was able to bring DTCAP so far was upend her own political career and step down from the race. She did what she felt was right to maximize our chances against PennEast.
Now she wants to come back to the Delaware Township committee. I don’t live there so I don’t get to vote, but if I did I would vote for Kristin in a heartbeat. She is the type of person you want leading a small township through adversity and beating the odds.
Don’t believe this smear campaign, sent out at the last minute to sully her good name. Don’t look at the personal attacks, such as claiming she single handedly raised taxes all on her own while providing no context (this part of a smear is sadly very familiar to us here in West Amwell this election cycle). Take a look at Kristin’s actual record of 9 years on the Township Committee, her two years as mayor. Take a look at the organization she built up in DTCAP. Quitter? You gotta be kidding me.
Today, November 7th 2016, FERC issued yet another “Information Request” to PennEast. These are official notices from FERC to PennEast that they need a bunch of info to complete the NEPA process. In this case, these were asks about DEIS questions and information that PennEast submitted after the DEIS comment period closed.
PennEast has 20 days to answer.
The request is here:
http://elibrary.FERC.gov/idmws/file_list.asp?accession_num=20161103-0023
In total, FERC lists 46 different things from PennEast. And these were not small things. Hoo-boy, no. This wasn’t some simple”please jiggle this table” request. Some of the things FERC is asking for are massive, and I doubt some of the individual items could be done in 20 days, let alone all of them. Either way, this is not going to be a Happy Thanksgiving for PennEast’s consultants.
A big question here is what impact this will have on the schedule. Here’s some stuff to consider:
Put all those facts together, and it doesn’t look good for a December 16th FEIS. I don’t see a reasonable way for FERC to gather all the public comments by December 5th, process all of PennEast’s answers on November 27th, and have that all packaged in a neat FEIS bow on December 16th. If they tried it, I think every group watching would scream bloody murder – and the courts would listen.
No, I think FERC is short handed and are under intense scrutiny right now. I think they are bureaucratically building up a wall of excuses on why they can delay this project (and many others). With only three commissioners that puts a heavy work load on them, it means any conflict of interest would render them unable to do anything at all, and that 3 people is a small number to take the blame if they mess up.
My guess is they’re going to delay this at least 60 days, if not more. It’s ONLY my personal guess, but I think they don’t want anything to do with a PennEast decision until after the next president is sworn in, and maybe not even until they get more commissioners appointed.
Some of the notable items from FERC’s ask-list include:
The huge “not an exhaustive list”
#1: “Provide updated alignment sheets and corresponding tables to correct the following sampling of discrepancies. This is not an exhaustive list”.
The “not an exhaustive list” includes over 30 things that are wrong or missing with tables and maps in the DEIS.
Revise all your maps in Appendix F
#2: ” ……provide a revised map as needed that shows the current proposed route as modified by PennEast’s September 23, 2016 filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission”.
Appalachian Mountain Club doesn’t believe you
#3: “In response to the Appalachian Mountain Club’s July 20, 2016 letter (accession number 20160722-5016), provide additional information to support PennEast’s statement in its June 8, 2016 response to the FERC Environmental Information Request (EIR) question no. 8, that the Buckeye West and Buckeye East alternative crossing locations of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail (ANST) would “pose significant operational safety concerns due to proximity to existing products pipelines”.
Give us detailed alternatives all over the Blue Mountain area
#4: ” …evaluate the feasibility of a lateral pipeline to connect the Blue Mountain ski resort to Variations 13, 14, and 16-20 as identified in PennEast’s application to the Commission. For each variation, identify a potential lateral pipeline route and provide an environmental comparison of the variation and lateral, with the corresponding segment of proposed route.”
In other words, “because Blue Mountain wants to be a customer” isn’t sufficient need to cause massive environmental damage.
Explain why you’re minimizing impacts to a Tea Party multi millionaire and maximizing impacts to small houses in West Amwell
#5: “Provide a response to the issues identified in the comment letter from Michael Spille (accession number 20160829-52257) regarding Variations 75 and 76 in Hunterdon County, New Jersey”.
Hey, I know that guy 🙂 More seriously, FERC is actually finding the routing here suspicious, and is actually listening to a degree.
Explain why you prefer impacting houses to light industrial areas in Hopewell
#6: “…Hopewell Township states this interconnection is located in a light industrial area and would reduce impact on residences and farmland, a proposed affordable housing site, and traffic impacts related to crossing State Highway (SH) 31”.
Do a serious analysis of eliminating the need for the Atlantic Sunrise Project
#8: “….Identify if, and how, PennEast could modify the proposed PennEast Pipeline Project (Project) to accommodate the capacity and the customers proposed for the Atlantic Sunrise Project”.
This is part of EPA’s push, and FERC is starting to finally capitulate to them. PennEast now has to try to show if it makes Atlantic Sunrise redundant. Meanwhile, EPA will ask the same thing of Atlantic Sunrise (show how you can make PennEast redundant).
Actually try to avoid Important Bird Areas (IBA)
#10: “…In response to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) comment (accession number 20160913-5213), describe the feasibility of a route alternative to avoid Important Bird Areas, as well as other areas known to the FWS to contain high concentrations of migratory birds. Coordinate with the FWS to develop route alternative and file copies of PennEast’s consultation with the FWS”
This one is HUGE, and would likely take months for PennEast to do, not 20 days.
We don’t like ANY of your pipe and contractor yards. Change them.
#13″…Modify proposed pipe and contractor ware yards in Luzerne, Carbon, and Northampton Counties, Pennsylvania, and Hunterdon County, New Jersey, to avoid or minimize forest clearing”.
Note that this isn’t just “tell us how you would do it” kind of request. They want actual alternative pipe and contractor yard blue prints in new areas. This will take forever.
Create a Biological Assessment (BA) for FWS
#18: “In its comments on the draft EIS the FWS New Jersey Field Office requested that a Biological Assessment (BA) be prepared for the Project. Therefore, provide an applicant-prepared draft BA to address potential impacts on FWS trust resources. The applicant-prepared draft BA should be prepared in consultation with the New Jersey and Pennsylvania field offices of the FWS”.
In 20 days!!
You can’t ignore the bats
#19: “Provide the measures or updates to those measures that PennEast would implement to ensure the Project would be consistent with the FWS New Jersey Field Office recommendation to avoid hibernacula for federally-listed bats by at least 0.25 miles.”
Really, you can’t ignore the bats
#20: “Update the status of mist net surveys completed for Indiana and Northern long-eared bats along the current proposed route, by state. Include the number of surveys completed out of total number required/planned for each state, and update the capture results information”
Actually demonstrate that you’re trying to avoid state listed species
#23: “Provide a list of the measures PennEast has developed in consultation with the applicable state wildlife agencies to avoid or minimize Project impacts on state-listed species and state species of concern”
For some reason people are upset that you’re targeting conserved land
#25: “For each parcel crossed by the pipeline that is under any form of conservation or open space protective easement agreement, identify if construction and operation of the pipeline would change the status of the conservation or open space easement, and if the change would affect just the permanent right-of-way, the construction work space, or the entire parcel. Also, as requested in comments filed by the FWS New Jersey Field Office (accession number 20150913-5213), develop a mitigation program for any public or private lands that would lose a conservation status and any special tax status as a result of the Project. Update documentation of correspondence with the appropriate land management agencies for public lands or private lands conservation groups for other easements crossed by the Project:
The “conserved land is cheaper” free ride just got shut down. By FERC of all people.
They’re upset you’re after conserved farms, too
#29: “Provide a response to New Jersey State Agriculture Development Committee’s (SADC’s) comments on PennEast’s Agricultural Impact Minimization Plan (AIMP) any filed with the Commission (accession number 20160912-5922)”.
So PennEast now has to prove that they’re actually trying to avoid preserved farm land. This will be a serious problem for them, because they clearly are targeting preserved farm land to make their lives easier.
Delaware Township says you’re overestimated tax payments by 10x
#34: The Tax Assessor of Delaware Township estimates that the pipeline would generate $49,000 per year in annual property tax revenues in their township. The estimates developed by PennEast (from Table 5.10-5 in Resource Report 5, and subsequently updated on February 19, 2016) are substantially higher: $2,914,782 over 5 years for an annual average of $583,000, more than 10 times the Delaware Township estimates”.
How exactly is PennEast going to explain that they’re basically trying to bribe municipalities like Delaware Township with over inflated tax estimates?
Let’s talk about reduction in property values
#35: “Explain how potential reductions in existing assessed values are addressed in the estimates presented in Table 5.10-5 in Resource Report 5, and subsequently updated on February 19, 2016. Specifically, address potential reductions that would result from property owners requesting a reassessment in their property taxes because they no longer control the land within the PennEast easement”.
This is my personal favorite. FERC, who claims that pipelines don’t impact property values, is now telling PennEast to account for loss of property values from having a pipeline easement on their properties.
EPA setup for more GHG emissions analysis
#44: The EPA has requested (accession number 20160913-5144) an estimate of the number of wells required to supply the amount of natural gas that could be transported by the PennEast pipeline. Provide this estimate”.
This is HUGE. This is a setup by the EPA for saying “now quantify how much green house gas emissions are associated with those X hundred wells”.
There were actually 5 large EPA-induced asks around air quality impacts.
So I don’t think FERC has necessarily reformed or turned a corner here. More likely, they are really feeling the heat of September the 12th. They are feeling the heat of Beyond Extreme Energy protests. Of many congress people complaining about issues with FERC. And of massive public complaints about the FERC rubber stamp. All in the most contentious election year ever.
Add to that an especially bad pipeline proposal like PennEast, and you have a recipe for disaster…for FERC. I think FERC is channeling their Inner Bureaucrat and is purposefully adding in dozens of time and energy intensive requests to PennEast to have an excuse to delay the Final EIS. I think FERC is also seeing the writing on the wall that Fish & Wildlife, EPA, and the state Clean Water Act stewards have stopped kowtowing to FERC and are going to start playing hard ball. They know it for a fact from NY DEC, and they’re feeling it now with increased EPA pressure on Green House Gas emissions and other areas.
FERC is putting on the brakes, and we should all be happy about it. Let’s hope the investors in the PennEast companies sit up and take notice of this.
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The other day I received a disturbing flyer from the Democratic campaign in West Amwell, the West Amwell Proud folks. In it, they attacked incumbent Zach Rich and insinuated that the township is weak on PennEast. Specifically, they claim that the township only donated $300 to support http://thecostofthepipeline.com and http://pipeinfo.org, and that they only made that donation because the Democrats made a similar donation to West Amwell Citizens Against the Pipeline. The whole tone of the article implies the Township has been inactive and inattentive on the whole issue.
I’d like to set the record straight on that. I think this latest attack by the West Amwell Proud campaign shows just how little they understand how Township works.
West Amwell Township has been out leading the fight against PennEast since it was first proposed. Here is the Township website on PennEast:
http://www.westamwelltwp.org/controls/NewsFeed.aspx?FeedID=88
On the site there were over 40 updates to Township residents from October 2014 to July 2015. This effort was lead by the incredible Cathy Urbanksi, one of the true unsung heroes of our little town. Cathy is the chair of West Amwell’s Environmental Commission, and she has been unflagging in her efforts to stop this project. I’ve worked very closely with Cathy since the summer of 2015 to ensure that township doing everything it can to help stop this project. Since then, updates for the Township have been coming predominantly through West Amwell CAP, which is why the township page’s history ends in July 2015. I effectively took up a lot of house keeping on PennEast so the township environmental commission wasn’t solely focused on PennEast (they do A LOT!).
Along the way an ENORMOUS amount of work was undertaken. West Amwell submitted hundreds of pages to FERC during both the pre-filing and application process. They passed resolutions against the project, and passed ordinances to keep our Township safe and to make it more difficult for PennEast to try to worm their way in. They met with agencies such as NJDEP and talked to face to face with PennEast as well.
Meetings were sponsored by the Township, with hundreds in attendance.
Our Mayor spoke powerfully at the Trenton scoping hearings in 2015.
In October 2015, West Amwell Township promptly filed to intervene in the proceedings with FERC, and has continued to submit exceptionally strong documentation to FERC showing why this project is not needed, and how badly it will damage West Amwell Township’s ecosystem, drinking water systems, history, and our very way of life.
During the DEIS comment period, the Township ensured we were heard, and submitted several documents to FERC, including this one – signed by (among others)
Zachary T. Rich, Mayor
Stephen Bergenfeld, Committeeman
Robert E. Tomenchok Jr., Chair, Planning Board
James J. Cally, Board of Health; Planning Board
Cathy Urbanski, Chair, Environmental Commission; Open Space Committee
The Township has also been smart to not try to go it alone. They’ve been working with other townships and groups in the area to fight the project. In September 2016, Mayor Rich joined five other local Mayors in a letter to the editor debunking PennEast’s supposed-benefits to local municipalities. They’ve been working with the Citizens Against the Pipeline Groups, and Non-Governmental Organizations like the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, New Jersey Conservation Foundation, Stony Brook Millstone Watershed Association. They’ve been working with well-known local companies like Princeton Hydro. And also with people like myself.
This wasn’t done with money. Money isn’t what’s going to beat this project. We fight because we love our town, and Cathy, and Zach Rich, and the rest of the township officials have happily volunteered hundreds of hours to fight PennEast. They do it for our Township. They do it because West Amwell is worth it.
West Amwell’s fight against PennEast has been hard fought, and kudos should be given to the people like Cathy who have poured so much blood sweat and tears into the effort.
I’ll close with this – the efforts of the We Are West Amwell team against PennEast have been extremely well documented.
So in contrast, what have Eric Richard and the West Amwell Proud team done in connection with PennEast? So far, I have this:
And that’s it.
I’ve been searching the Internet for a couple of weeks now to see what else that team has done in connection to PennEast. So far, I haven’t found squat. None of the the West Amwell Proud candidates have commented to FERC or any other agency. None have intervened in the federal docket. There are no letters to the editor, no petitions signed. They don’t seem to be on any of my mailing lists.
There’s a whole lotta nothing there.
So rather than criticizing the Township for not spending massive amounts of money against PennEast, I would hope that Mr. Richard and friends would thank the Township for accomplishing so much with so little. And perhaps they should look inward and ask themselves what they’ve actually done to fight PennEast.
P.S. The timing of that $300 donation was because I asked for donations at that time. It had nothing to do with the election.
The Cost of the Pipeline 