Controversial Essex County Pipeline Station Gets Key Permits – Caldwells, NJ Patch

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — One of the largest natural gas providers in the nation is gearing up for a controversial expansion of a compressor station in Essex County, and it may happen as soon as March.

Williams Transco has been trying to beef up its current compressor station in Roseland for years as part of its Gateway Expansion Project, a larger effort to revamp the Transco interstate natural gas pipeline and provide additional service to New Jersey and New York.

The energy giant has claimed that the Gateway Expansion Project is needed to help it provide New Jersey with more than half of its natural gas, including to utility companies such as PSE&G.

However, local activists have blasted the 27,500 horsepower expansion in Roseland, characterizing it as a ticking environmental time bomb… an allegation that Williams Transco has disputed.

Now – after making its way through years of red tape and permit applications – Williams Transco finally has the necessary approvals to move forward in Roseland, a spokesperson told Patch on Thursday.

“Each applicable approval and permit is in place from all county, state and federal regulatory agencies,” Christopher Stockton of Williams said.

This includes an erosion and sediment control plan from the Hudson Essex Passaic Soil Conservation District, he added.

“We would like to begin construction in March 2019, likely in about two weeks,” Stockton said.

The approvals for the Roseland compressor station came as a surprise to many activists, including those with Roseland Against the Compressor Station (RACS), according to spokesperson Ted Glick.

In particular, activists were stunned by a greenlight from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which recently issued the company two crucial permits to move ahead with the project, he said.

According to Glick:

“On December 27, right after Christmas, the DEP granted two water permits for Transco. This was not revealed publicly until January 16. They did this despite all of our opposition, expressed at the public hearing they called, because of our pressure, in early August and via hundreds of emails following it into September. Working with the Roseland Borough Council, Food and Water Watch, NJ Sierra Club and 350NJ, we scrambled, put together and submitted an official administrative appeal of that decision, due last week on February 15. This followed our having done the same thing in response to the December 12 permit to Transco issued, as we expected, by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). We got that appeal in, all 22 pages of it, with a Food and Water Watch lawyer doing the bulk of the work, by the January 11 deadline.”

GETTING THE GO-AHEAD FOR GATEWAY EXPANSION

Ironically, the Roseland compressor station is located on Eagle Rock Avenue, just a short walk from the Essex County Environmental Center.

Activists have argued that the expansion in Roseland – which would double the station’s capacity – is full of “inherent dangers.”

According to Glick, the expanded compressor station will add to air and water pollution, increase the risk of fire and explosion at the facility and send additional greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

In 2018, Matthew Smith, an organizer with Food & Water Watch, had harsh words for the proposed Roseland station, which he said would jack up the amount and pressure of fracked-gas passing through a 60+ year old pipeline in Roseland and 15 other Essex County communities.

“The company behind the project, Williams Transco, is a major fossil fuel corporation with a long history of environmental violations and deadly explosions,” Smith alleged.

According to the RACS, the compressor station is part of a pipeline that runs under several Essex County towns including Roseland, West Caldwell, North Caldwell, Cedar Grove, Little Falls, Clifton, Bloomfield, Nutley, Belleville, North Arlington, Lyndhurst, Rutherford, East Rutherford, Carlstadt, Ridgefield and North Bergen, as well as the campus of Montclair State University.

The pipeline system connects the Northeastern markets with natural gas from the Marcellus Shale Formation, some of which is extracted using the controversial process known as “fracking.”

Activists’ outcries for transparency caused some local governments, such as the Roseland Borough Council and Livingston Town Council to call for DEP hearings on the proposed station. Other local governments that have expressed concern about the pipeline expansion include Nutley, Bloomfield and the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders.

“There is great concern about safety in the area, considering the compressor station’s location adjacent to a PSE&G switching station and high-tension electric lines, as well as its close proximity to the Passaic River,” Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr. told the DEP in a May 2018 letter.

“We would also like to point out that there is great mistrust and fear in the community, especially since a large amount of gas was released without notice in 2013 during the construction of the first compressor station,” DiVincenzo added. “This created panic, including the evacuation of an elementary school.”

However, according to Stockton, activists’ concerns are overblown.

“Station 303 is an electric motor-driven compressor station, therefore, there are no emissions from natural gas combustion associated with compression,” Stockton stated. “The Transco pipeline has been safely operating in this area for decades, and the pipe in this area consists of both Class 3 and 4 pipe, which is the highest pipeline design class standard established by U.S. DOT code.”

Stockton said it’s important to note that station 303’s horsepower addition will not result in an increase to the main pipeline’s current operating pressure. In addition, the pipe will continue to be monitored 24/7 and will be “regularly tested” to validate its integrity.

Stockton previously told Patch:

• “The project minimizes impacts to landowners and the environment by increasing the utilization of existing pipeline infrastructure, rather than constructing new greenfield pipe.”
• “Virtually all of the project activities are within existing rights of way and/or property boundaries.”

FERC officials notified Williams Transco that the company is approved to begin construction activities for the Gateway Expansion Project on Feb. 25.

Although Williams Transco’s pathway to the Roseland expansion is seemingly clear, there may still be a chance of turning the tide, Glick said.

“There are two things of special note about the FERC decision,” he stated. “One of the three voting commissioners, Richard Glick (no relation), voted against the approval primarily because FERC did not adequately assess the climate impacts of this project. And two, there are currently two cases pending at the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. challenging FERC approvals of projects that are very similar to the Gateway Expansion Project/Roseland compressor expansion. We have been informed by a lawyer very experienced with challenges to FERC that it is possible that one or both of them could win. If that happens it would likely lead to an overturning of FERC’s decision on Gateway Expansion.”

In addition, a statewide coalition composed of 60 organizations, Empower NJ, is calling upon Gov. Phil Murphy to implement a moratorium on all new, proposed, fossil fuel infrastructure projects in the state, Glick said.

There are currently 12 such projects, of which the Gateway Expansion Project is one, Glick said.

“So we are still fighting, and there is still hope,” Glick emphasized, urging people to contact Gov. Murphy and DEP Commissioner Catherine McCabe.

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