One of the largest pipeline projects of the Marcellus region, a $700 million expansion of Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co.’s “300” pipeline, is already under construction, employing 2,100 surveyors, inspectors and construction workers. It received federal approval last year to lay approximately 127 miles of 30-inch pipeline — along the existing “300” pipeline where possible — through northern Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey, as well as the installation of two new compressor stations and upgrades of seven others.
Other companies are moving forward with gathering and interconnecting pipelines to move the gas from producing well sites. Those gathering pipelines require various federal, state or local permits to cross wetlands, streams and roads, but not federal energy regulators’ approval. Jan Jarrett of the Harrisburg-based environmental group PennFuture, said she is concerned about the impact of the pipeline construction on forests, wetlands and the countless high-quality cold water trout streams that spider-web northern Pennsylvania. Joe Osborne of the Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP) in Pittsburgh said there are concerns about air pollution from the growing number of compressor stations that are sources of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds — that contribute to ground-level ozone and asthma.
At least one new interstate project, the MARC I line proposed by Inergy LP, is getting pushback from some residents and environmental groups in the rural Endless Mountains region of north-central PA. The line, which would travel into New York, would pose the threat of pollution to 111 sensitive streams and water bodies and split 39 miles of undeveloped forest and farm land in an area that supports a robust ecosystem, high quality of life and recreation, the EPA said. But FERC says the pipeline would have “no significant impact” on the environment and recommends that it be allowed to go forward.
Chesapeake Energy is protesting the new rules of the US Army Corps of Engineers in reviewing stream crossings by proposed pipelines claiming that some 128 completed Marcellus wells are being unnecessarily shut off from production. These new permits allow regulators to consider the cumulative surface-water impacts of the projects, which are increasingly spider-webbing to tie new Marcellus wells to interstate pipelines. Such new permits streamline some of the process for stream disturbance evaluations.
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