Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Not in anyone's backyard, by Jeanne Sable


I’d like to add to Susan Wessels’ “Reasons to Oppose Pipeline” (Feb. 5).
The Kinder Morgan/Tennessee Gas Pipeline plan to construct a 36-inch, high-pressure natural gas pipeline parallel to electrical transmission lines through seventeen New Hampshire communities might be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous.

We are called the “Granite State” for a reason. Workers would have to blast through nearly 80 miles of granite boulders and ledge to bury this oversized pipeline. The toxic chemicals used in blasting could easily contaminate the many lakes, ponds, rivers, streams and wetlands it traverses, and pollute the precious aquifers that provide drinking water for the vast majority of residents in these small New Hampshire towns. Herbicides to remove vegetation along the corridor would have similar impact.
The co-location of high-pressure pipelines adjacent to high voltage electric transmission lines is an even greater recipe for disaster. Ruptures occur even at pressures much lower than the roughly 1,500 PSI anticipated for this North East Direct (NED) pipeline. Numerous explosions, documented by the gas industry itself, have resulted in human fatalities, injuries, structure fires and acres of charred land up to 950 feet from ruptures — the area ominously referred to as the “incineration zone.”
In the densely populated Northeast, countless more citizens would be subjected to such hazards. How much time and money would local towns need to prepare volunteer fire departments and emergency personnel for a disaster of such magnitude?
Even without explosions, the “fracked” gas slated to pass through our communities presents a significant threat. Hydro fracking literally shatters the barriers between the Earth’s strata, releasing a cocktail of unknown substances that had rested deep underground, isolated from one another — and us — for eons. Pipeline leaks are common and allowed below certain levels. And the routine venting of natural gas at noisy compressor stations and other appurtenances releases methane — a powerful greenhouse gas — and other pollutants into the air, endangering health and increasing global warming.
Analysts cite ample evidence that the gas from NED is largely for export, though we would be paying for it through tariffs on New Hampshire electric bills. It’s like getting stuck with the bill for constructing a major highway through our woods, wetlands and rural neighborhoods, with no on- or off-ramps for local traffic.
But this is more than a New Hampshire issue. A growing network of citizens has been mobilizing to fight NED wherever it rears its ugly head. As we join forces across town and state lines, it occurs to me that WE are a pipeline — of people conveying truth in order to preserve our future.
We reject a private corporation’s scheme to make us pay for an obsolete infrastructure carrying dirty fossil fuel to foreign shores while the world cries out for clean air and water. We oppose riddling the countryside with dangerous natural gas pipelines, not because we are NIMBYs.
Call us NIABYs — Not In Anyone’s Backyard.
Let’s bury this pipeline proposal once and for all — by pronouncing NED dead.
Jeanne Sable
P.O. Box 712
Fitzwilliam

7 comments:

Rich said...

Why do you think the gas line owners wants to dog leg the gas line into Winchester and towns like us. Why because the word is out that Winchester’s people are clueless simple minded zero’s without the ability think beyond their next beer or drugs. Word is out the Winchester selectmen can be bought. The selectmen will approve the gas line and you the ecology people can wave their big “E” flag all day and take a suck pill just like the racetrack owner who own the town hall, drop some money at town hall and shove the 3 foot gas line into your back yard, the people across town can not see it from their houses. How so you like the fact it will devalue your property. Winchester deserves the gas pie line, it will go nicely with Winchester’s junk yards, gravel pits, racetracks and maybe we can get someone with a drag strip or foundry that will bang and pound all day and the rest of us can eat $hit and bark at the moon because we are all to ignorant to speak up. I love the thought of a gas line behind your house. You knew it was there when you move. Why would anyone move next to a 3 foot gas pipeline?

Anonymous said...

I just hope people come out and vote on the three Warrant articles to help prevent the pipeline. Check out the Winchester Pipeline Awareness Facebook Page. These folks are doing great research and showing that there are people in town with brains who really care who are working hard to make it a better place and keep this pipeline out.

Anonymous said...

I like the pipe line and the tax dollars it will bring into the town, I am voting yes and voting with my it's not in my backyard.

Bob Davis said...

I am amazed how in Sunday's Keene Sentinel, Winchester School Board Chairman Rick Horton has wasted a lot of the school board’s time rallying his members of the school board about the dangers of this gas pipe line. When Horton’s self-center thinking of only of self. Horton has been running around screaming, “the sky is fall”!. When in Horton’s reality, his concern is the pipe line will be in his back yard. If he was so concerned about using Winchester’s children and contaminating the drinking water and not himself he would have spent some time in apposing the 3 races tracks noise, the health problems, broken bones, laceration and hearing loss know to cause and the fact the racetracks is only feet from our three town wells.

Anonymous said...

Do thorough research and see that the tax revenue is B.S. Not to mention the loss in property value for all the properties that will either be taken by eminent domain or have right of ways. Read the true facts on the true revenue and it comes out to a loss. And Bob you are right about all you present about the racetracks and I feel for you and other abuters. I wish there was a solution that helped you all out and allowed race lovers to continue minus the noise pollution and negatives that many agree with you about

Bob Davis said...

REF FEb 15 9:13. Thank for your support with your comment. When I decided to engage the racetrack I wasn't doing this for only myself just trying to help others neighbors living in ear shot of the racetracks noise,
after hearing their horror stories about the noise and the effects it had on there kids. There is a perfect solution by using the state laws against them, but you can not get pass the support the racetrack have at the town hall especially Margaret Sharra and Rick Horton. The best thing anyone could do is vote Sherman Tedford out this year and Teresa Seppe next year. I told everyone these warrant articles will not work unless they show up at deliberative session to defend them. All I can say if you can not help yourselves no one can do it for you. I guess I must take my RV and boat and do more camping and fishing on weekends.


The gas pipe line As I understand it the land that has already been taken, it's Northern Grid Power Lines right of way.

Anonymous said...

For that you are wrong. The route proposed covers over 5 miles of private property and even where it follows a pipeline they can't use the pipeline but have to run beside it ............... also on private property. Rights of way are primarily easements on private property.