Five area towns have been fighting the battle against the proposed Northeast Energy Direct pipeline project for months.
Now the Cheshire County government is on the cusp of joining them.
That is, if county officials want to.
Officials from Fitzwilliam,
Richmond, Rindge, Troy and Winchester plan to submit a letter asking
commissioners and delegation members to vote to take a position against
the project, and write a letter conveying that stance to the governor
and New Hampshire’s Congressional representatives.
The decision to write a letter
came during a meeting involving town officials from Fitzwilliam,
Swanzey, Troy and Winchester and county commissioners Friday afternoon
in Keene. Representatives from the Southwest Region Planning Commission
were also present. County commissioners called the meeting, saying they
wanted to discuss the project and ways they may be able help, even
though what they can do is limited.
Fitzwilliam Selectman Susan S.
Silverman volunteered her board to take the lead in drafting the
document when it meets Monday. She said the letter could then be sent to
other towns — including those with no officials present at the meeting —
to sign.
“At this point, I think what we’d
ask the county commissioners to do, and I also hope the county
delegation, is to write the preferably strongly-worked letter to the
governor and our congressional representatives saying they’ve examined
all the issues and don’t think this is right for New Hampshire,” Troy
Selectman William T. “Tom” Matson said.
The delegation comprises the county’s 23 state representatives.
Officials and residents in
Matson’s town and others along the pipeline’s projected route have been
submitting comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, he
said, but with more than 6,000 already submitted, he is concerned about
how much weight is being given to them.
“Our fear is this is going to be a railroaded process,” he said.
FERC’s five-member board will decided whether the Northeast Energy Direct pipeline wins federal approval.
Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC, a
Kinder Morgan company, is proposing to build a pipeline carrying
natural gas from shale gas fields in Pennsylvania through upstate New
York, part of northern Massachusetts and into southern New Hampshire
before going to a distribution hub in eastern Massachusetts.
The Northeast Energy Direct
pipeline would cross 71 miles of southern New Hampshire, including
Fitzwilliam, Richmond, Rindge, Troy and Winchester.
Liberty Utilities, which is
interested in buying natural gas from the pipeline for its customers, is
considering building a line to branch off the pipeline to supply fuel
to customers in the Keene area. It’s likely that branch would have to
come through Swanzey to get to Keene.
“There has been a lot of activity
relative to the pipeline,” Stillman Rogers, chairman of the county
commission, said. “The thing that has struck me is we’re going to need
to plan for what happens in our towns, if this thing happens.”
That includes having ordinances
that would pertain to pipeline development in place sooner rather than
later, participating in public meetings and hearings, and submitting
written comments when there is an opportunity to do so, he said.
It’s also important that
residents and officials push state and federal legislators to come up
with laws about the process of decommissioning a natural gas pipeline
when it is no longer in use, and who would be responsible for paying for
it, he said.
“What happens when pipelines are
no longer useful, they get abandoned in place,” he said. “We don’t want
towns in the state of New Hampshire to have to pay to rip out 30 miles
of pipeline in this county, and pay to do all the soil work and testing
because it’s going to be required.”
Silverman said several New
Hampshire towns along the proposed pipeline route are members of a
municipal pipeline coalition that meets every two weeks.
One of the topics that has been
discussed is how Portland Natural Gas Transmission System in Maine is
proposing a project that would expand a pipeline built in 1999, she
said.
Her husband, Terry, who is
chairman of the Fitzwilliam Planning Board, said the pipeline travels
300 miles through the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts,
and connects to TransCanada’s system at the border. That project, as
well as another pipeline expansion project being proposed along an
existing line, could be alternatives to the Northeast Energy Direct
pipeline, he said.
“It’s a bigger picture,” Susan Silverman said. “There is a better alternative out there than NED.”
Matson said among the many
frustrations associated with the Northeast Energy Direct pipeline
project has been that people living in the towns where the pipeline is
proposed to pass through are being treated like “ignorant hillbillies.”
“This whole process has disregarded this end of the state,” he said.
He believes that is because
elected officials don’t believe this area has the same amount of voters
that they’d get from communities such as Manchester, Concord, Merrimack
and Nashua, he said.
In addition, many government
officials seem to be suspicious of information being presented by people
with the pipeline awareness coalitions, and officials are treating them
as if they don’t know what they’re talking about, he said.
“I have a conservation commission
with two Ph.D.s on it. Is their information valid? I bet it is,” he
said. “We’re looking for validation for the work we’re doing as
committees and citizens. Government bodies need to recognize that we’re
doing a good job and our information is correct.”
Silverman agreed, adding that
when she and representatives from other towns along the proposed
pipeline route met with Gov. Maggie Hassan, they were disappointed
because they felt Hassan wasn’t listening to them, and was more
concerned about the state possibly losing businesses if the pipeline
wasn’t built.
“The take-away I had was that she
was willing to throw away 15 towns so the roughly 20 businesses she
mentioned could stay in the state,” Silverman said.
Meghan Foley can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1436, or mfoley@keenesentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @MFoleyKS.
