Category: Uncategorized

Hunterdon is a hot bed of equestrian activity

Horses are everywhere in Hunterdon county. There are two horse farms within spitting distance of my house. On the way to the FERC scoping meeting last night I was on a road that had “25mph when horses present” signs for miles:

Claire is the owner of a horse farm in Kingwood Township, NJ, and her FERC submission talks about equines as you might expect:

I am the owner of a small farm in Kingwood Township, NJ, where I raise horses, not far from the proposed PennEast Pipeline route.

I have two points to make.

First, I am among many equestrians in Hunterdon County who are here because of the land and miles of trails that meander through historically significant property and valuable, preserved open space. Our land is rural, situated between New York and Philadelphia. It is accessible to the cities where many of us work, yet it is a world apart. We live here so that we can enjoy our way of life, commune with our horses and breathe fresh air.

The community of equestrians in Hunterdon County is well known. We are proud of the numerous Olympians who reside and train here. And, each year thousands of amateurs from all walks of life participate in a wide variety of riding sports in Hunterdon County. Many of these riders live here and others drive great distances for what we have to offer, contributing to the notable equestrian economy. The agricultural focus of Hunterdon County has fostered this business and the community.
To name a few, The Readington Trail Association, Amwell Valley Trail Association, Covered Bridge Trail Association, Pittstown Trail Association and the Alexandria Trail Association, are groups that sponsor events throughout the year providing members and riders from the tri-state area access to the unmatched trails in the region. Riding here, over the same fields that the Revolutionary troops did or looking at undisturbed vistas that have stood for millennia from the back of a horse is unique and rare.

Away from the roads and highways we see the natural world at its best. We see natural ecosystems thriving, pristine streams, old growth trees, and hear the calls of thousands of birds. On one recent occasion, in November of 2014, a large group of riders was brought to a standstill, in total awe, when four magnificent bald eagles took flight as we topped a hill in the Sourland Region. They circled a few times giving us a breathtaking memory to cherish. This is why we ride here.

I ask the FERC to consider, as the agency develops the Environmental Impact Statement, the negative impact Hunterdon County and its equestrian community would experience if the PennEast Pipeline were granted approval. Including,

• The right-of-way it would command through valuable rural scenic property, a source of recreational enjoyment for many citizens. This is a place we can escape urban noise and polluted air to ride our horses freely with our senses open.

• The degradation to increasingly threatened natural habitat that is home to millions of organisms.

• The impossibility of mitigation. No landscape in Hunterdon County or anywhere, once cut through by the PennEast pipeline, can be restored. Mitigation, by “replacing” that habitat in another region will simply leave the original land changed for the worse in perpetuity.

For these reasons, please deny the application by PennEast Pipeline (Docket No. PF15-1-000) with a no action, no build decision.

Claire’s complete FERC submission is available below:
Claire’s submission – FERC Generated PDF

Claire’s submission – FERC Generated PDF Alternate Site

FERC Scoping Meeting last night

I wasn’t able to make the Trenton meeting on Wednesday due to a work conflict, but I made the 40 minute drive last night to attend the single meeting in Hunterdon County.

It was quite an amazing experience.

I got there early at about 5:20 to ensure I was early enough in the queue to be able to speak. There was a list of elected officials who would go first, then a list of everyone else. I was on page four of the “everyone else” list. As it turns out over 70 speakers signed up in total and I spoke around 9:40, so I suspect some people might have gotten bumped due to time constraints.

The vast majority of the speakers were against the pipeline. I think only about 3 of them were pro-pipeline, including a union worker and a woman who worked for an energy company.

A huge number of the speakers ended up being individuals who’s FERC submissions I highlighted here. The Kingwood mayor kicked ass again, demanding that if the pipeline went through all residents of his town would have their wells monitored for a minimum of 10 years.

The woman who started an organic farm because she has severe chemical sensitivities spoke. She eloquently let the committee know that this pipeline was running right through her farm, her own safe source of food.

The “Mr. Butterfoos!” woman from Hopewell NJ spoke in my group of four. It was very moving to hear her describing the land preservation process in detail and to relate the personal history of her farm.

State and local officials testified over and over again how bad this pipeline was. It’s not about NIMBY. It’s about the route going through extraordinarily sensitive areas with no apparent acknowledgement at all from PennEast. A woman from the Sourlands conservancy relayed a story about talking to PennEast in one of the open houses. She asked asked a simple question – “What do you know of the Sourlands?”. Not a single PennEast representative had ever heard of the Sourlands.

A representative of another environmental group talked in depth about various protected species and the different layers of protection available. In his words, it would take years for PennEast to enumerate and study all of the protected species impacted by their route.

I’d heard some scattered reports of union members being present at meetings in an intimidating manner. I saw a bit of that last night. While it was “standing room only” at the meeting, it looks like every single person actually standing around the perimeter of the room was a union employee. I didn’t realize this until a union rep spoke and they cheered and hooted extensively. While they have a right to speak their word just like everyone else, the symbolism of all of them standing in a ring around the room was not lost on me. It was a pretty clear bullying/intimidation measure. I understand to a degree where the unions are coming from – jobs are important. But they seem to obsess on jobs on the exclusion of all else, which seems to be a short sighted policy to me.

The most surprising speaker to me was an emergency management manager from one of the towns in Hunterdon (not sure if it was Kingwood or another town). He pointed out a specific area where the PennEast nat gas pipeline will be crossing a petroleum pipeline. His concern? Terrorism. I hadn’t even thought of this angle, but apparently OEM-type individuals think very hard about domestic terrorism potential of projects. He demanded to know what kind of security PennEast would provide to this critical pipeline crossing area. He pointed out that mere fences wouldn’t work – a potential terrorist could just lob a satchel charge over a fence, or just use a drone to deliver an explosion wherever they wanted.

At one point pretty far into the meeting the usual applause accompanied the wrap up of one of the ecological minded groups that spoke – and a single individual giving intense boos. The boos rapidly escalated into profanity, and after about a 30 second tirade that left the entire group a little non-plussed the individual finally left the auditorium. His gist was “fuck you all, this BS set of regulations is why I can’t get a fucking job!”.

A speaker immediately after his outburst referenced him directly. She stated that she felt for the plight of the unemployed and it’s a serious issue in the state, but building pipelines wasn’t the answer. Instead she mentioned the prospects of both alternative energy providing employment…and jobs for maintaining existing pipelines that have fallen into disrepair.

Only a few people cited the eia.gov numbers on use and consumption, and only in NJ, so I was glad that I focused on that area in my three minutes. While I’m a horrible public speaker, the crowd responded to the numbers – it’s clear this pipeline is massive overkill if you’re just considering the energy requirements of NJ and PA. It’s abundantly clear that they’re thinking of distribution across the country and possibly overseas, which means PennEast is more or less lying to the FERC in their justification for the project. Pointing out that there were only 10 days of extreme price volatility in a 1,824 day period was especially eye-opening to many people.

Our FERC submission

The FERC.gov site has been down for quite awhile today so I haven’t been able to file our submission yet. I’ve linked to it here:

Our submission – original PDF

Apologies for the length, I’m a pretty wordy individual.

Update:

The FERC website stayed up long enough for our submission to take 🙂 Our official comments (same as the document above are available below):

Our FERC comments – FERC Generated PDF

Our FERC comments – FERC Generated PDF Alternate Site

My FERC comments at the scoping meeting

The pipeline will carry 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas through it per day. PennEast says that’s “enough gas to serve more than 4.7 million homes”. In their FERC filing under “Purpose and Need” they state that “…the Project is designed to bring lower cost natural gas to homes and businesses in Pennsylvania and New Jersey”. They repeatedly state that this pipeline is for the benefit of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Here’s some facts taken from the U.S. Energy Information Adminstration (http://www.eia.gov/).

The entire state of NJ has approximately 2.6 million natural gas residential consumers. All of Pennsylvania also has about 2.6 million natural gas residential consumers.  Combined that’s 5.2 million residential consumers.

PennEast is delivering enough gas for “4.7 million homes”.  Wait, what?  This pipeline carries enough gas to supply 90% of all consumers in both states?  Why do we need this pipeline?  We already have sufficient supplies for both states.  In fact this is a smokescreen, this pipeline is vast over kill for NJ/PA residential use.  Unless PennEast thinks NJ and PA will double the number of natural gas consuming homes, which seems a bit ridiculous on its face.

Maybe we should factor in all uses of natural gas in both states, both residential and commercial.  eia.gov has those numbers too.  In total NJ averages 1.8 billion cubic feet of natural gas consumption per day across all consumers, and 3.0 billion in PA.  So that’s 4.8 billion cubic feet used by both states per day.  These numbers still don’t add up – this one pipeline represents 20% of our total commercial and residential consumption in the two states combined.

Worse – since 2011 PA has been a net-exporter of natural gas, thanks to the Marcellus Shale fracking operations going on there.  This means they already have an EXCESS of natural gas and certainly do not need more locally.

In fact the backdoor PennEast is trying to sneak in through is price volatility.  In January 2014  there was a sharp price spike in natural gas prices for a couple of days, peaking out near $120 when it is normally $4-$8.  From January 2009 to October 2013 there were 8 other short spikes of much smaller magnitude.

This is PennEast’s true justification.  Because natural gas spikes a few days a year, we should get this 108 mile long, 3′ wide, high pressure natural gas pipeline.  This will indeed reduce or eliminate those spikes.

Do you really think PennEast is spending a billion dollars to eliminate 10 days worth of price spikes over a 5 year period?

Of course not.  Their justification is those 10 days in a 5 year span.  Their real motivation is that they’ve already sunk a ton of money into Marcellus Shale production, and they want to ship that gas somewhere.  We sure as heck don’t need it in NJ and PA, and they know that.  Look at the eia.gov web site graph for total consumption in NJ and it’s been effectively flat since 1998.  FLAT.

Their FERC submission highlights NJ and PA companies that will be using the gas provided.  There are indeed some.  But it doesn’t mention the non-NJ/PA companies.

You see companies like Spectra Energy, a part-owner in PennEast.  Spectra has a grid of pipelines across the entire eastern sea board of the U.S.  They show in their presentations that PennEast gas could go anywhere they want in that grid – including to LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) sites.  Once in LNG form it’s shippable over seas.

It’s for companies like Crestwood.  It’s proposing a new pipeline to connect to PennEast called the MARC II Pipeline Project.  Pipelines begetting yet more pipelines.

It’s for companies like New Jersey Natural Gas and their Southern Reliability Link project.  The Southern Reliability Link is yet another pipeline they’re connecting to PennEast.  More pipelines!

Take a look at what energy analysts in the market place think.  Here’s an article from research firm Sterne Agee.  It states:

Things are already ugly in U.S. natural gas markets, and its only going to get worse, according to research firm Sterne Agee. SA analysts Tim Rezvan and Truman Hobbs argue that the double whammy of continued supply growth amid weak demand mean that natural gas prices are still not done dropping, and slash 2015/2016 estimates across the board for the natural gas firms in their coverage universe.

Rezvan and Hobbs lower their 2015/2016 Henry Hub natural gas forecast “to $2.70/$3.20 per mcf from $3.40/$3.70. We also trim our 2015/2016 WTI forecast to $58/$65 from $63/$70. The glut of oil and gas in the U.S. will require a lengthy, at times painful, healing process for coverage companies and E&P investors. Investors should remain bottoms-up focused, commodity agnostic, and prepared to look beyond 2015 gas price woes.”Natural gas prices likely to stay depressed well into 2016

Why do we need this pipeline again?

Clear cutting old growth forest not a consideration of PennEast, period

Julian in Pennington, NJ is another resident along the pipeline route who’s had unsatisfactory discussions with PennEast representatives. He tells the FERC:

As a landowner in Hopewell Township (NJ), Block 92, Lot 8, on Scotch Road, I object to the current proposed pipeline route along the existing power easement. That route would require clear cutting a large swath of old growth forest – hundreds of years old – on my and adjacent parcels. This is a forest my family, neighbors, community and I explored and enjoyed for many years, in my case, the past 50 years since moving there in 1965.

I mentioned this objection to several pipeline representatives, and was told by all that clear cutting old growth forest is not a consideration for them in routing or re-routing their pipeline, period. I hope that your agency would think otherwise – that forest will take hundreds of years to regenerate and provides much needed habitat for a wide range of plant and animal life.

In addition, I object generally to the need for this pipeline. The fact that interested parties will purchase natural gas to resell abroad does not, in my view, establish the kind of need warranting a certificate of convenience and necessity. The current slow-down in drilling Marcellus Shale in PA arises not from a lack of pipeline infrastructure, but from low prices resulting from arguably an over-supply, a condition which the
proposed pipeline would only exacerbate.

Thank you for your consideration.

I supposed PennEast caring about clear cutting old growth forest shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone anymore.

Take note of the other section of Julian’s submission. As he indicated exploitation of Marcellus Shale is slowing down significantly because prices of oil and gas are so low. We have a glut of energy and this pipeline makes no sense.

Compare this pipeline to the Leidy Southeast expansion. Leidy is carrying only half as much natural gas, but it’s being spread from NY down the coast to the Carolinas. With this already approved, why do we need a PennEast pipeline carrying twice as much natural gas – but supposedly only targeted to central NJ and eastern PA? This makes no sense – the PennEast pipeline will effectively double the amount of natural gas being pumped into the region. There’s no way we could use all this gas here. In fact it’s pretty obvious that the gas will not benefit our region at all but will be shipped elsewhere. Possibly ashore – the news is awash with stories of U.S. becoming an exporter of natural gas for the first time and companies aggressively pursuing permits from the government to ship natural gas abroad.

Julian’s submission is available below:

Julian’s submission – FERC Generated PDF

Julian’s submission – FERC Generated PDF Alternate Site