The PennEast pipeline is an unnecessary infrastructure project that will only benefit the companies who own it, and whose costs will be borne by residents in the area. In response to the PennEast threat, we formed HALT PennEast. We are average citizens who have joined forces to stop this pipeline.
Excerpt: “The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 in favor of PennEast on Tuesday allowing the pipeline to condemn state-owned property through eminent domain.”
Excerpt: “I’ve heard the following comment more than once: ‘What’s the big deal? The pipeline will be underground. You’ll never know it is there and the pipeline company will pay you!’ So why are we so opposed to this pipeline?“
Excerpt: “A landmark United Nations report is expected to declare that reducing emissions of methane, the main component of natural gas, will be a critical step in achieving a near immediate slowdown in the rate of global warming.”
Excerpt: “There are only two remaining permits to be issued by the PA. Dept. of Environmental Protection (PADEP) for the shortened Pennsylvania-only PennEast pipeline.”
Excerpt:“The PennEast Pipeline project continues to be stalled with no progress in months. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has yet to accept the inadequate Environmental Assessment which was done for the Phase 1 Project…”
Excerpt: “On Sept. 2nd the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) concluded the opportunity to comment on the Environmental Assessment for the new Phase 1 (PA only) pipeline project.“
Excerpt: “PA Attorney General Josh Shapiro has issued a Grand Jury Report that concludes that Pennsylvania regulatory agencies have failed to protect the public from the negative impacts of fracking for gas.”
Excerpt: “The Supreme Court has finally taken action on the PennEast appeal of the State of New Jersey case. The Court has asked the Solicitor General to submit a brief.“
Excerpt: “The original PennEast pipeline has two important permits that have yet to be granted by the PADEP. The Chapter 102 Permit concerns erosion and sediment control.”
Excerpt:“PennEast has created a new project that they are calling Phase 1. FERC has accepted the application and granted a new docket number (CP20-47). This is a project to build 68 miles of the original route through PA. This is a PA-only pipeline that follows the originally proposed route but ends in Bethlehem Twp. where it will connect to the Adelphia Gateway Project which is another pipeline project with a separate docket number (CP18-46).”
Excerpt: “As noted in last month’s report, PennEast Pipeline has asked FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) for an extension of two more years in which to get the project operational. FERC has not yet scheduled a hearing on the extension request.“
Excerpt: “Today, the PennEast Pipeline asked FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) for an “extension of time.” […] If they manage to complete the pipeline by 2022, it will be five years behind schedule.“
Excerpt: “Yesterday, the Keystone pipeline leaked an estimated 383,000 gallons (9,120 barrels) of oil into wetlands in North Dakota. The leak is already the eighth-largest pipeline oil spill of the last decade.”
Excerpt: “On September 10th, a three-judge panel of the 3rd District Appeals Court, overturned an earlier ruling and upheld the State of New Jersey’s appeal.“
Excerpt: “As noted in the March report, PennEast filed for approval of a route change on 2/19/19 and asked for FERC approval of that route change by 7/1/19.”
Excerpt: “PennEast filed for important approvals with both the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (PADEP) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) this month.“
Excerpt: “According to a reports filed with the PA Dept. of State, pipeline companies have spent more than $37.7 million on lobbying our representatives in Harrisburg.”
“We hope that everyone will share these findings with the public, with your members, and with decision-makers evaluating natural gas pipelines and infrastructure in the Delaware River Basin and beyond. They tell an important story regarding the significant environmental and social costs of these projects, and the horror stories from construction of Mariner East 2 show how real the risks are, and how damaging these projects can be to our water resources, and impacted landowners and communities!”
—Tom Gilbert–Campaign Director for Energy, Climate and Natural Resources, New Jersery Conservation Foundation
These posters are the art work of our Webmaster, Kitty Evans. She created these as a school project but we think they express not only her feelings about living with the threat of the PennEast pipeline but the feelings of many of our HALT landowners.
Take a look if you would like some insight into the day to day impact of this project over the past seven years.
The Poisonous Dangers of the Proposed PennEast Pipeline
The PennEast Pipeline, Jacqueline Haut Evans, and HALT PennEast
It was newsworthy when South Jersey Industries announced a plan to eventually eliminate its greenhouse gas emissions. But there’s a hitch.
Alix Bacon adjusts an anti-pipeline placard in January 2015 in Hunterdon County, N.J., near where the proposed PennEast pipeline, considered in April by the U.S. Supreme Court, would cross the road. CREDIT: CLEM MURRAY
But there is a big fly in their clean energy ointment: the proposed PennEast gas pipeline.
Like other utility companies in New Jersey and across the nation, SJI knows that dirty fossil fuels are on the way out. Customers want safe, clean energy sources like wind and solar. Over the next several decades, those sources will replace natural gas and other fossil fuels.
So it was newsworthy when SJI announced a plan to reduce and eventually eliminate its emission of greenhouse gases that worsen the unsafe, unhealthy impacts of climate change.
But the company’s ongoing financial support of the proposed PennEast pipeline undermines the worthy goal they are embracing.
PennEast is a proposed 120-mile natural gas pipeline to transport gas from fracking sites in Eastern Pennsylvania across the Delaware River through towns in Hunterdon and Mercer Counties in New Jersey. SJI has an ownership stake in the project — which could cost roughly $1 billion — and would also be a customer, buying gas from the pipeline to service its own customers.
But according to the N.J. Rate Counsel, supply and demand requirements can be met through existing arrangements, even during extreme weather. In other words, PennEast is “a solution in search of a problem” — we don’t need an additional pipeline.
This project would also have detrimental impacts. According to a 2019 report by the Cadmus Group, prepared for the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, it would result in increased emissions of harmful greenhouse gas. The PennEast pipeline could also contaminate public water systems and wells, and disrupt acres of land, resulting in an estimated $43 million loss in ecosystem services. The construction will disturb wildlife and their habitats, including areas critical for many species of birds. A 2017 analysis by Key-Log Economics said the pipeline may also reduce property values by tens of millions of dollars.
Residents from New Jersey municipalities in its path have spoken out opposing PennEast, backed up by elected officials from both parties. The state of New Jersey has blocked key easements on properties in which the state has an interest, including land preserved for conservation, agriculture, or recreation, which the PennEast Pipeline Co. LLC claims is illegal; the case has now reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments from both sides last month.
By positioning itself as a carbon-neutral company while continuing to support the PennEast pipeline, SJI is essentially going to the store to buy a nicotine patch and a carton of cigarettes. Are you serious about quitting, or not?
SJI wouldn’t be the first company wanting to have it both ways by planting one foot in the future while keeping the other in the past, and seeking an environmentally sensitive public image in the process. When a company misleads the public about its environmental practices, it’s called “greenwashing.”
It would be a lot easier to give SJI credit if the company would “come clean,” literally and figuratively. It’s hypocritical to seek praise for environmental initiatives while seeking to build an unneeded fossil gas pipeline that would increase harmful emissions, potentially damage private and public lands, and threaten critical water and wildlife resources. As laudable as the goal of being carbon neutral by 2040 is, it’s inconsistent with building an environmentally destructive fossil fuel pipeline that would be in operation well beyond that date.
If SJI wants to be a good corporate citizen and as green as its public relations campaign touts, it will give up its interest in the PennEast pipeline.
Tom Gilbert is the campaign director for ReThink Energy NJ, a nonprofit organization that supports a swift transition to clean, efficient, renewable energy.
This painting is a response to the threat of the proposed PennEast pipeline. It is a threat to our community, our environment, our agricultural and cultural resources as well as global climate. I call it “The Climate Change Apocalypse.” It depicts how the places we call home, such as the Rosemont Valley, our global home, including Manhattan, and the glaciers and seas will be impacted by climate change if we cannot stop the use of fossil fuels and the proliferative infrastructure it brings.
Our community is fighting to defend our “peaceable kingdom.” This is why we are working together to stop PennEast and climate change before it is too late.