The gas companies are expanding their infrastructure in the U.S. at an unprecedented rate. There are over 40 proposed or approved gas infrastructure projects including pipelines, compressor stations and offshore Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) storage facilities across New York State alone, with several in New York City and its suburbs.
The gas companies have a twofold purpose:
- Lock the U.S. into a fossil fuel future – if we continue to spend billions on interstate pipelines, compressor stations and natural gas storage facilities we will need to continue using fossil fuels for many years to come to pay for this immense infrastructure investment.
- Set up the infrastructure to ship gas overseas – not only can the gas companies get more money for their gas overseas, but also by shipping gas overseas they drive the gas prices much higher here at home. It’s a simple matter of supply and demand. Expanded gas operations in the U.S. have increased the supply of gas causing prices to fall. By shipping overseas supplies in the U.S. will be lowered, raising prices here at home.
Forget the mantra of the gas companies that they need to increase production to make the U.S. energy independent – they are really working to increase their markets and our dependency on them at the expense of the health of Americans and our environment.
Infrastructure in New York
Currently in New York there are eight major pipelines (Blue Stone, Constitution, Iroquois, Mark Connector, Millennium Phase I, Rockaway, Spectra and Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) Project) with more coming, a gas storage facility at Seneca Lake, multiple compressor stations including ones in our area in Hancock, Windsor and Minisink and a Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) Processing facility, the Port Ambrose project, proposed for off of the coasts of New York and New Jersey, that are in various stages of the approval process.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is an independent government agency that regulates the country’s natural gas industry, hydroelectric projects, oil pipelines and wholesale rates for electricity. It is responsible for reviewing proposals to build interstate natural gas pipelines and liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals.
FERC’s job is to review each infrastructure application to make sure it meets the minimum criteria for approval, but it has a history of being much more concerned with free market enterprise than consumer concerns. It has rarely if ever turned down an infrastructure project. FERC’s seeming indifference to consumer and environmental concerns is a prime example of how state and federal regulatory agencies are just not keeping up with the task of protecting us from the harms of this massive build out by the gas and oil industry.
Litigation is one of the ways to fight FERC. A recent successful suit brought before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in June 2014 resulted in a positive ruling. The justices said that FERC had failed to provide a meaningful analysis of the cumulative impact of the Northeast projectby not considering 3 other connected & interdependent projects, the 300 Line Project, the Northeast Supply Diversification Project, the MPP Project.
Catskill Mountainkeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council have partnered to create the Community Fracking Defense Project to provide legal and policy assistance to towns and local governments seeking added control and/or protections from infrastructure projects and hydraulic fracturing in their communities.
Click here for local actions against fracking around the country.
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Export Terminals
In order to ship gas overseas it must first be turned into a liquid which reduces its volume by about 600 times. This is done by cooling it to -260° Fahrenheit. When it reaches its destination, it is warmed back into its original gaseous state so that it can be used. In liquid form gas is particularly dangerous and possibly disastrous. If it escapes by accident onto land or into water, it very quickly turns back to its gaseous form when it mixes with air and burns if ignited.
Dominion’s Cove Point facility at the mouth of the Chesapeake River in Maryland will be the first LNG export terminal slated for the East Coast. It will be used to transport the fracked natural gas from Pennsylvania.
Liberty Natural Gas has submitted an application to build a LNG facility off the coast of Sandy Hook, NJ, about 17 miles southeast of Jones Beach, NY. Although the application specifies that the facility is to be used to import natural gas, it is likely that it use would be changed to export gas once government restrictions are dismantled. Unlike some of the other infrastructure projects that are totally controlled by FERC, either one of the governors of NY and NJ has the power to veto it.
There is currently a bill in Congress to fast track the approval of Liquid Natural Gas Storage Facilities.
Compressor Stations
To keep natural gas in a highly pressurized state for travel through pipelines, compressor stations are located every 40 to 100 miles along the route to market. Compressor stations have been documented to cause air, water and noise pollution. Studies from air around compressor stations have shown extremely high levels of carcinogens and neurotoxins. Lisa Jackson, former Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said in relationship to fracking infrastructure that there are going to be huge smog problems where there never were before. High levels of ozone (smog) have been shown to have a direct correlation to an increase in asthma and other respiratory diseases. In Pennsylvania gas companies have constructed over 450 compressor stations in five years.
If the build out of this infrastructure is allowed to go forward unchecked, we are headed for a country that is locked into fossil fuels for the foreseeable future and will suffer the potentially disastrous environmental, health, economic, and social impacts of fracking and fossil fuel production. Catskill Mountainkeeper is fighting to make sure that doesn’t happen.