Spectra Pipeline

Video: Report-back on scene at Spectra protest

Video: Scenes from The Spectra Public Hearing, Oct.,2011

Radio: Overview of issues with Spectra, radon, boilers and fracking

The “New Jersey-New York Expansion Project” is a high-pressure gas pipeline, varying in diameter from 42-30″ routed up the New Jersey shoreline, through the edge of Staten Island, under Jersey City and across the Hudson River, entering Manhattan at the Gansevoort Peninsula in the West Village. It is known more commonly by the name of its builder’s parent company, Spectra Energy.

FERC (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) is the lead agency in charge this project. It is filed under FERC Docket No. CP11-56-000. FERC is a federal agency mandated to process energy infrastructure as quickly as possible. While they are responsible for issuing Environmental Impact Statements (EIS), they are concerned only with whether procedure is followed, not with asking whether or not a particular project should or should not be built.  As is standard practice, Spectra paid for the EIS for its own pipeline.

Although during the review of the draft EIS, there were nearly 5,000 public comments filed against it, and only 22 in favor (all but one from entities which would benefit from it), FERC has now approved the Spectra pipeline and it is currently under construction, despite pending lawsuits from the Sierra Club, Food and Water Watch, the City of Jersey City, and NoGasPipeline, a NJ advocacy group.

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Sane Energy Project opposes this project for the following reasons:

1. The pipeline is a direct threat to the public health, safety, property values and economy of eastern New Jersey and New York City, especially to the residents, businesses, galleries, schools, religious and cultural institutions of downtown Manhattan, Staten Island, and Jersey City.

Should the pipeline or vault explode on the Manhattan side of the Hudson, the potential fire radius would encompass three historic districts, including: 10 irreplaceable Landmarked buildings; 10 schools or daycare centers; 8 playgrounds, including a large playground on the pier directly adjacent to the Sanitation Pier (the entry point of the pipeline); 13 churches or religious institutions; more than 28 art and cultural centers (including the Ground Zero Museum Workshop); the Hudson River Greenway, shoreline and West Side Highway; more than 38 restaurants; countless boutiques, hotels, businesses and residences. The proposed 17’ x 26’ vault is sited on the same block as the soon-to-be-built Whitney Downtown, as well as the massively popular High Line, which attracts 2 million annual visitors and has been credited with bringing $2 billion in private investment, 12,000 new jobs, and nearly 29 major new developments to New York’s economy. The pipeline’s metering and reading stations will emit airborne carcinogens, which will waft over downtown Manhattan, Staten Island, and Brooklyn. LUGs (Lost Unaccounted Gas) are estimated at an average of 3 to 5% with as much as 12 to 20% to be lost on the western side of the Hudson River. In addition, according to Professor James W. Ring, Professor of Physics Emeritus at Hamilton College, radon released at drill sites in the Marcellus has the potential to be carried with the gas to point of use at stoves and boilers in residences, putting citizens throughout the five boroughs and elsewhere at increased risk of lung cancer.

2. The pipeline is a larger threat to the public health, safety, property values and economy of all regions of the Marcellus shale, including upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and other areas, due to the inevitability that it will increase the demand for hydrofracturing.

The proposed pipeline will not bring “clean” energy to New York City or other regions. As stated in the pipeline application, this pipeline would bring fracked Marcellus shale gas to market. This would encourage further production in gas fields upwind and upstream from the densely populated metro area, with ruinous impact on air and water quality for populations in both rural and metro areas. Air pollution from gas field and pipeline emissions can travel up to 200 miles and will more than negate the purported “clean-burning” advantage of gas, particularly if the path through the port areas of Bayonne results in the construction of a continually off-gassing LNG export terminal. Local and global climate will suffer, as evidenced by the Howarth Cornell study, published April 2011, that documents methane as a much more potent emitter of greenhouse gases than even coal or oil, especially when viewed over a 20-year cycle.

3. There is a history of safety issues with the builder of this pipeline.

• In June, 2011, DOT Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) inspectors cited Spectra Energy for 17 inadequacies in its pipeline safety operations and procedures, including problems with pipeline surveillance, emergency plans, and welding procedures.

• Texas Eastern, the subsidiary of Spectra Energy that proposes to build the NJ-NY Expansion Project, received the EPA’s seventh highest Federal Penalty Assessment on record (nearly $25 million adjusted for inflation to 2009 numbers), for PCB contamination.

• Spectra Energy’s underground gas storage reservoir in Moss Bluff, TX experienced catastrophic failure in 2004 with two explosions, spewing flames as high as 1,000 feet. An estimated 6 bcf of natural gas was consumed during the fire, which lasted nearly one week.

• On August 23, 2009, Spectra Energy’s Steckman Ridge, PA, natural gas compressor station experienced an “emergency shutdown,” releasing 1,629 pounds of lubricating oil and 6,460 pounds of methane (including 1,151 pounds of volatile organic compounds), coating a fertile agricultural, fishing and hunting region with potentially toxic industrial gear oil. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued two Notices of Violation. Nearby landowners reported to FERC a total of 43 additional shutdowns and/or blowdowns at the same compressor station between August 2009 and June 2011.

• According to The Vancouver Sun, Spectra Energy’s Pine River natural gas processing plant is the top polluter in British Columbia, discharging 1.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gas pollutants. The company’s Fort Nelson gas plant was ranked the #3 polluter in BC.

• The plan is for the NJ-NY Expansion project to be monitored by the builder/Applicant (Spectra/its subsidiaries); the dEIS states, “The Applicants would operate and maintain the newly constructed pipeline facilities in the same manner as they currently operate and maintain their existing systems.” Given their past record, this is an assurance, not of safety, but of calamity.

4. Pipeline regulation and oversight in America is sorely inadequate. 

• Spectra is excluded from regulations of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

• Fear of an explosion from this 30” high pressure pipeline is well placed. Nationwide, pipeline accidents result in, on average, a death every 3 weeks, and injuries or burns more than once a week.

• Before 2002, there was no federal regulation of pipelines. Nationwide, there are roughly 2.5 million miles of pipeline; of these, PHMSA has jurisdiction over just 174,000 miles of interstate lines. Just 7% of pipelines are subject to mandatory inspection. For the NJ-NY project, inspection is proposed only once every 7 years.

• There are only 88 auditors nationwide, who primarily review industry-supplied reports and do occasional field inspections. PHMSA reports 800-900 annual field inspections, or roughly just 10 per inspector.

• A senate bill calling for 40 additional inspectors and doubling the maximum fine, introduced after the San Bruno explosion, died in session. Tighter regulations are unlikely to pass under the current Congress.

• The inadequacy and inaccuracy of pipeline maps nationwide has been well documented.

• Steel pipes, such as the type suggested for the NJ-NY Expansion Project, corrode from moisture. When a pipeline loses thickness from corrosion, it is often “derated,” meaning that instead of replacing the damaged section, the pressure is lowered. The pressure had been lowered in the pipeline which blew up in San Bruno, CA, but a bad weld in the steel pipe could not withstand even that pressure.

• The principal means of detecting leaks is to search for desiccated grass and trees along the route, a method with obvious drawbacks in the underwater and paved urban areas this pipeline would traverse.

• “Pigs,” an inspection tool used to examine the interior of a pipeline, are limited by the diameter of the pipeline; when the diameter of a pipeline varies, as with the NJ-NY Expansion Project, the entire length of a pipeline cannot be examined by a pig.

5. The pipeline is an unnecessary infrastructure expense intended to enable export.

• The claim of increased local demand and stable pricing is a false premise. According to the NYS Energy Plan of 2009, “80% of New York State’s projected 5% gas demand growth [i.e., 4%] by 2020 will be in NYC and LI.” However, according to the same data, that baseline is 2007, and after 2010 demand is actually projected downward and then flat until 2020.

• This pipeline will extend the existing network of pipelines and proposed export facilities that will enable energy conglomerates to seek the highest global bidder. The result will be that our region will be more, not less, dependent on volatile supplies and prices, competing for gas with emerging markets in Latin America, Asia and elsewhere.

6. It’s the wrong direction

Building new gas infrastructure wrongly invests in dirty fossil fuel when the United States should ramp up investment in clean sustainable energy infrastructure instead. For all the danger, cost, and environmental destruction of extraction and transport, the supply will be short-lived, with recent studies projecting only 20% of earlier reserves. According to the peer reviewed 2010 Stanford University study, using technologies already available, the world can run solely on renewable energy by 2030. With this in mind, it is a poor investment to shackle ourselves to polluting methane. New Jersey and New York City can lead the nation by choosing sustainable energy and conservation instead of this pipeline.