The Forest Society is one of more than 740 landowners who are directly impacted by the preliminary route proposed by Kinder Morgan (KM) to build a new natural gas pipeline. KM’s “New England Direct Project” as proposed last December will bring natural gas from the Marcellus Shale reserve in Pennsylvania to a natural gas distribution hub in Dracut, Massachusetts. KM’s latest proposed route, released last December, traverses 71 miles of New Hampshire land, located in 17 municipalities, and over parcels of Forest Society forest reservations in Greenville, Mason and Hudson.
If ever built on the preliminary corridor proposed, KM would place a 30 or 36 pipeline in a trench 3 to 4 feet below the surface of the ground. In some locations, like major river and stream crossings, KM suggests they would use a technology called horizontal direct drilling to locate the pipeline well below the rivers and streams being crossed. Few details are presently available about where precisely on the ground the facility would actually be built. A formal final proposal must be made to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for review and action. The project must also be reviewed by the NH Site Evaluation Committee. KM says it expects to submit its FERC proposal by the end of 2015 or early in 2016.
There is significant (and appropriate) debate as to whether this pipeline is necessary or desirable to meet future energy needs in New Hampshire and New England, and whether the public benefits are worth the costs and disruption to private landowners, communities and natural resources along the 71 mile NH route. These are issues which will be a primary focus of the FERC review of the project.
Between now and the time KM settles on a final proposal to present to FERC, the Forest Society is focused on assuring that we understand how the proposal will impact the three Forest Society properties, at least 36 other conservation parcels along the proposed route (over 6 linear miles of the 71) and the natural resources and communities that exist along the entire 71 mile route in NH. We will be asking our Congressional delegation to press FERC to give the same degree of robust and transparent review to impacts on natural resources for the NEW project as they traditionally provide for assessment of energy issues. FERC should be well informed on both sets of issues. In fact, FERC should be open to making a decision to deny this project a green light if it concludes that significantly adverse natural resource impacts should trump a determination that the natural gas is needed to meet future energy needs.
Please go to https://www.forestsociety.org/advocacy-issue/kinder-morgan-gas-pipeline for a map of the 71 mile route and the conservation lands it impacts, for more detailed information on what is known about the project to date and for a more detailed discussion of the Forest Society’s work on this proposed project.