Local News

by Thaddeus Flint

Back in March, Becky Meir of Canaan was at the Project Native environmental film festival in Great Barrington. One of the speakers at a discussion session was Bruce Winn, President of the Berkshire Environmental Action Team. Winn was speaking about a proposed new natural gas pipeline that would run from Wright, NY, to Dracut MA, cutting through Richmond, Lenox, Pittsfield and Dalton in Massachusetts.

“There’s no way of getting there without going through Canaan,” Meir said at the time.

Less than three months after that revelation, Meir was holding the first public information meeting of the Columbia County Citizens for a Sustainable Future, a group created to inform residents of the impact the pipeline could have on the area.

Around a hundred people came to the Canaan Congregational Church last Saturday to learn more. About twenty of those people were from New Lebanon. “It’s just a beginning, but we have to start somewhere,” said Meir.

One could say that all this really started back in the 1950s when the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company installed the first of three pipelines through Columbia County. The other two pipelines were installed sometime in the 1970s and in 1992. Easements were purchased from local landowners, with about eight abutters (people whose property it crosses) in Canaan and about 23 in New Lebanon. Meir cautioned that that number might not be absolutely correct as the maps she used to determine it were not entirely accurate and Kinder Morgan, the owners of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, aren’t exactly helpful when asked for such information.

So, there are already three pipelines, what difference would a fourth make? Well, plenty it seems. This newest planned pipeline would be pushing a much larger amount of gas through at much higher pressures. Environmental groups also believe that the gas would be a product of fracking – extracting gas through high pressure water and chemicals injected deep underground – and that the chemicals used in fracking could also flow through the pipeline and possibly out of it into the area through leaks, accidents and cleaning.

Another difference, it turns out, is the internet. Back in the 50s, 70s and 90s towns and landowners had to pretty much rely on the information handed to them by the pipeline owners. Obviously they were selling a product, so some little details might not have been mentioned. Now, however, anyone can research the most minute of details. Someone could type say, ethyl-methylethyl disulfide or tetramethyl benzene or methyl pyridine into Google and see some of the problems, both to the environment and to humans, these chemicals might cause. All three are used in fracking, as are hundreds more, the problem being that the public really doesn’t know which ones exactly because company recipes are secret. Instead of just believing that pipelines are completely safe, one could research accidents, leaks and explosions. Typing “natural gas pipeline explosion” into YouTube for example rewards the viewer with over 9,000 videos of natural gas pipeline explosions.

And “safety is dropping,” said Rosemary Wessel, of No Fracked Gas in Mass, a group dedicated to stopping the pipeline in Massachusetts. According to Wessel, there have been over 990 “significant incidents” involving gas pipelines since 2000, with 34 deaths, 137 injured and $1.5 billion in damages.

Explosions, of course, are relatively rare when one considers that there are over 300,000 miles of pipelines in the U.S. Noise and vented methane, however, are much more common. Wessel explained that more compressor stations are needed along a high pressure route in order to keep the gas moving. The stations, lit up in a blaze of lights at night, are barn sized facilities with exhaust fans that “run 24/7…with a residential noise rating of 50 to 90 decibels,” she said. The stations also sometimes have to vent gasses and environmentalists say that those secret fracking chemicals could be released into the air as well.

There are, however, a few benefits that come with the pipeline. Some jobs might be created, though a handout from the meeting says these would be “very few short term jobs during the pipeline’s construction…there is no guarantee these jobs would be local.” Unless something goes wrong. In regard to their oil pipelines, Kinder Morgan once told a Canadian regulator that “spill response and cleanup creates business and employment opportunities for affected communities, regions and cleanup service providers.”

Landowners whose property the pipeline goes though would also be compensated. The exact amounts are not known. What is known is that the easements stay with the property if it is ever sold and might decrease property values in the long run due to increased selling difficulty and subsequent problems in obtaining mortgages and insurance.

Well, at least there is the gas, right?

Actually there is also no gas, not for the average resident or landowner.

“You guys aren’t getting the benefit of this gas,” said Jane Winn of the Berkshire Environmental Action Team, “it’s going right straight through to New England.”

The gas is for power generation in New England. Well, it’s supposed to be for power generation, anyway. That’s how Kinder Morgan is selling it. The gas users of New England are the ones who would be paying for the pipeline with higher tariffs. The problem with that argument, according to No Fracked Gas in Mass, is that “if current levels of state energy [in Massachusetts] efficiency programs continue, there is no need for additional natural gas infrastructure even with economic growth taken into account.”

So why build a pipeline if the gas is not needed?

To export it.

“The price for natural gas in Europe and Asia is much higher,” said Jane Winn. “Three to four times what it is in the United States.” A plant already exists in Nova Scotia that could be used to process the gas for export. A pipeline already exists going south to the U.S. It just needs lots of gas now to make it profitable. And why would Kinder Morgan pay to build a pipeline if it could get taxpayers to pay for it instead? That was one of the theories discussed. There are others of course. Perhaps Kinder Morgan really just wants to sell gas to New England as they say. The problem with accepting the word of Kinder Morgan is that its CEO, Richard Kinder, is an ex-top Enron executive. The Wall Street Journal actually called him “the luckiest ex-Enron employee,” because he was one of the few Enron heads who didn’t end in jail.

Whatever the reasons, Meir, Wessel and the Winns want the public to at least be educated before they make the decision to allow, or not allow, this pipeline to come through their towns. Kinder Morgan is reportedly already contacting land owners in New Lebanon and Canaan, asking them if they can come onto their properties and make surveys. Landowners in NY are allowed to say “no” and keep surveyors out. If they already said yes, they can still rescind previous permission. Landowners with easements are not automatically forced to accept a new pipeline. The project is still in the planning stage and could possibly be stopped if enough landowners and towns opposed it. Should the project succeed, construction is currently slated to begin in April 2017 with the pipeline operational by the end of 2018.

The next meeting of Columbia County Citizens for a Sustainable Future is scheduled for June 25. The location will depend on the expected attendance so those interested are asked to contact Becky Meir or Bob Connors at 518-781-4686 or raconnors@yahoo.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/stopnyfrackedgaspipeline.