The plan to rebuild and expand a pipeline that pumps natural gas through the Hudson Valley region includes a receiving station in the village of Buchanan.
Spectra Energy Partners LP plans to increase the capacity of its Algonquin pipeline to ease an energy bottleneck in the New England region, but the larger amounts of flammable gas that would go through Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties have some residents opposing the plan.
The agency responsible for approving the project, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, held a public hearing in Cortlandt Manor last month, but few of those following the review process were aware of the receiving station at that time.
“That”™s really disturbing that this was sort of snuck in there,” said Susan Van Dolsen, a member of the activist group Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion.
Spectra made a presentation to the village board of trustees on Oct. 6, with elected officials and residents firing questions about potential environmental impacts from the station and why the pipeline was 450 feet from the Buchanan-Verplanck Elementary School.
The existing pipeline has run through Rockland, Westchester and Putnam counties since 1953. The company wants to replace the existing 26-inch diameter pipe with a 42-inch pipe that will use a quarter more pressure to transport natural gas fracked from the Marcellus Shale.
Indian Point Energy Center, the nuclear power plant in the village, was built after the original pipes were put in use. If the expansion is approved, it is likely that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will require Indian Point conduct new safety analyses or build out to enhance safety for its two reactors. Members of opposition groups said it didn”™t make sense for the NRC to weigh in after the fact.
“It”™s backwards,” Van Dolsen said. She also expressed concern that Spectra was looking to have the project approved by year”™s end and in place by spring 2016. “That”™s fine they have a timetable they have a business, but if that timetable is irresponsible then they have to wait and that timetable has to go.”
The pipeline runs 1,127 miles and carries 2.6 billion cubic feet per day. The proposed expansion would build 20.1 miles of new pipeline in Connecticut and New York, including a 0.7-mile crossing of the Hudson River at Rockland County.
Receiving stations, or pigging stations, will be built along the expansion. These stations include access for a so-called pigging tool that maintains and cleans the interior of the pipe between every half a year and 12 months. Some residents have complained that the access to the pipe could cause chemicals seeping out into the air, including waste from corroded radon materials traveling through the pipe.
There remain some questions about what ability the municipalities will have to affect the utility construction if FERC ultimately approves the plan. Activist groups are calling for action from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which also have to issue approvals for such a plan.
Marylee Hanley, Spectra”™s director of stakeholder outreach, said in a phone interview that the existing pipeline hadn”™t had an incident in its existence. She said construction would use mostly company-owned lands and rights of way.
“The (Algonquin) project is the most immediate solution for the region and would have an immediate impact on prices,” she said.
The Algonquin Incremental Market project is one of three interlinked pipeline plans running through New England for Spectra, which is based in Texas. The others are the Atlantic Bridge project and Access Northeast, both of which are expanding capacity as the amount of fracked natural gas increases. Another receiving station will be built in Yorktown as a result, but will be moved to Carmel on the border of Somers once the expansion work is completed.
Comments 1