West Roxbury pipeline: health, safety and climate at risk

Source: Spectra Energy

By Eric Smalley

Please take advantage of a rare chance to comment on a natural gas pipeline expansion near our neighborhood. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is holding a public comment meeting in our area about the capacity expansion of Spectra Energy’s Algonquin Gas Transmission natural gas pipeline. The expansion includes a new, 5-mile spur into West Roxbury.

The public comment period on FERC’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (PDF) for the project ends September 29. You can comment either in person at the meeting or online using FERC’s eFile system (follow the eFile link on the top right of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement information page).

The meeting is Monday, September 8, at 6:30 PM at the Holiday Inn Dedham, 55 Ariadne Road, Dedham, MA 02026.

Here’s some background on the pipeline and its expansion:

The Algonquin Gas Transmission pipeline begins in New Jersey, where it connects to the Texas Eastern Pipeline, which brings natural gas from Texas to the northeast. The pipeline ends in Beverly, where it connects to the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline, which runs from Nova Scotia through Maine and New Hampshire. The Beverly facility also connects to a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) port 10 miles offshore.

The stated purpose of the expansion, labeled Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) Project, is to increase the pipeline’s capacity for delivering natural gas to New England, where the current pipeline capacity is blamed for higher energy costs. Much of the gas that flows through the pipeline to New England comes from fracking operations in Pennsylvania and other parts of the Marcellus Shale Region as well as the deep South.

It also looks like domestic natural gas producers, including fracking operators, could use the expanded infrastructure to export natural gas. Here’s an excerpt from an energy industry blog post:

Despite the challenges they would likely face, as many as four companies are exploring the possibility of exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Canadian Maritimes to Europe, Latin America and Asia... Now there is serious talk of reversing [Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline]. Spectra Energy, majority owner in MNP, in early February initiated an open season on the proposed Atlantic Bridge project, which would expand Spectra’s Algonquin Gas Transmission and MNP systems, and move Marcellus and other U.S.-sourced gas north on MNP into Maine.

Exports could increase the demand for fracking and contribute to the continuing increase in the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

One of several grassroots organizations that oppose the pipeline expansion, Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion (SAPE), is against the project because it threatens to “exacerbate climate change, endanger our safety and quality of life, contaminate water, air and soil, cause harm to domestic animals and wildlife, and threaten farmland and property values.”

People’s Climate March

You can also make yourself heard on a global scale. Join people from all over the country and all over the world at the People’s Climate March in New York City on Sunday, September 21. 350 Massachusetts is sending busloads of Bay Staters to the Big Apple. You can catch a bus from Jamaica Plain. Sign-up ends Wednesday, September10. For tickets and more information, contact 350 Massachusetts.