Meetings on two topics related to the proposed Northeast Energy Direct pipeline will be held this week.
First, a Boston physician will give a presentation about the health effects a compressor station could have on area residents. This meeting is Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. in Temple.
Meghan Foley can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1436, or mfoley@keenesentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @MFoleyKS.
First, a Boston physician will give a presentation about the health effects a compressor station could have on area residents. This meeting is Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. in Temple.
There will also be meetings that
night and the next day in Swanzey and Rindge about plans to expand
natural gas service to those towns.
Dr. Curtis L. Nordgaard of Boston
Children’s Hospital is expected to focus his roughly 90-minute talk on
the health effects associated with living, working or going to school
near fracked natural gas drilling and processing facilities, according
to a news release from the Temple Ad Hoc Pipeline Advisory Committee and
the New Ipswich Pipeline Resistance. The two organizations are
sponsoring the free event, which will be open to the public and at
Temple Elementary School, 830 Route 45.
The school is about a quarter of a
mile from where Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC plans to site a
41,000-horsepower compressor station in neighboring New Ipswich.
Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC, a
subsidiary of Kinder Morgan, has proposed building the high-pressure
transmission pipeline to carry fracked natural gas from shale gas fields
in Pennsylvania through upstate New York, parts of northern
Massachusetts and into southern New Hampshire before going to a
distribution hub in eastern Massachusetts. The route would cross the
Cheshire County towns of Fitzwilliam, Richmond, Rindge, Troy and
Winchester.
Tennessee Gas Pipeline officials
filed the project’s application with the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission, which has the power to approve or reject the pipeline, last
month. Company officials have asked the commission to approve the
project by the fourth quarter of 2016.
Nordgaard said in a phone
interview that he has spent the past year and a half focusing his
research on the air pollution that pipeline facilities, especially
compressor stations, generate.
He’s found that pollutants
emitted from a compressor station are toxic and potentially cancer
causing, he said, and can lead to increased risks of heart disease,
stroke and respiratory diseases.
Pregnant mothers living near
compressor stations are at a greater risk of giving birth prematurely,
he said. Infants, he added, are also at risk for having a low birth
weight or being diagnosed with asthma.
Also this week, Liberty
Utilities’ representatives will meet publicly with selectmen in Rindge
and Swanzey this week to discuss their plans for expanding natural gas
service.
The Swanzey meeting, which is
scheduled for Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the town hall, is the company’s
second meeting with town officials about the expansion plan.
The Rindge meeting is Wednesday. Rindge selectmen’s meetings begin at 5:30 p.m at the town offices.
Liberty Utilities has a petition
before the N.H. Public Utilities Commission seeking rights to own and
operate natural gas distribution systems in Jaffrey, Rindge, Swanzey and
Winchester.
Two of the four towns — Rindge
and Winchester — are along the proposed route of the Northeast Energy
Direct pipeline, while the other two are nearby. None of the towns have
natural gas distribution systems.
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