News from Skylands CLEAN, Inc.

Tennessee Gas to hold forum on new pipeline
Additional line to run through township
By David M. Zimmer
Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Representatives from Tennessee Gas will hold an open house on Jan. 7, allowing the public to voice concerns regarding the installation of a natural gas distribution pipeline that runs 6.8 miles through the township.

The meeting is scheduled from 6 pm to 8 pm in the West Milford High School Auditorium to get further input from residents on the routing of an additional natural gas pipeline before surveys are done for the new construction.

Mayor Bettina Bieri said the company is trying to include the community in the project from the onset and is willing to work with property owners on the pipe’s exact path through town.

While Bieri added that the property used for the new pipeline would still be available for passive recreation, the path proposed by Tennessee Gas would make its easement significantly wider, so the company is showing consideration for the local property owners it has worked with in the past.

Company spokesman Jesse Green told the Township Council in September that the existing 128-mile long, 25-inch pipeline running through the Wallisch Estates on Lincoln Avenue is operating at maximum capacity. He said that an additional pipeline is needed, as the gas service is too critical to shut down while the current pipe is replaced.

As a result, the company is working on plans to place a 30-inch pipe 25 feet away from the current pipeline that runs to Mahwah and River Vale from new reserves discovered in Pennsylvania. This plan would increase total capacity by 120 percent.

Green said the subsidiary of El Paso Corp. plans to run the new pipeline parallel to the old pipe to make surveying, installation and maintenance easier. Moreover, the company is also already familiar with the landscape and the property owners in and around the current pipeline’s easement.

However, since the company must work with homeowners, corporation and governments to purchase land, this process will take years to complete, El Paso Corp., representative Susan King said.

While the company still needs to come up with an alternate route when applying for federal interstate natural gas pipeline permits, this projected route could become a reality even if Tennessee Gas has to exercise eminent domain on the parallel properties.

Kind said the surveying and permitting process would take at least two years. She estimated the pipeline to start service in 2011.