Eversource Still Trying to Build Tiny 5-Mile NatGas Pipe in Mass.
ANTI-DRILLING/FOSSIL FUEL | INDUSTRYWIDE ISSUES | LDCS | PIPELINES | REGULATION
Eversource Still Trying to Build Tiny 5-Mile NatGas Pipe in Mass.
ANTI-DRILLING/FOSSIL FUEL | INDUSTRYWIDE ISSUES | LDCS | PIPELINES | REGULATION
August 1, 2023
Eversource wants to build the Western Massachusetts Natural Gas Reliability Project in Springfield, Massachusetts, to prevent winter gas outages. The purpose of the tiny 5.3-mile pipeline is to function as a backup–to prevent natural gas from being turned off for 58,000 Eversource customers (200,000 people) in the region. The existing pipeline in that area is 70 years old with no backup. If the existing, old pipeline has an issue and the gas gets turned off, that’s 200,000 people with no natural gas in the dead of a New England winter. Yet the radicalized Massachusetts Energy Secretary Rebecca Tepper (far-left Democrat) has told Eversource its draft environmental impact report for the tiny pipeline isn’t good enough for her. She wants Eversource to cut down more trees to create a supplemental report to answer her nit-picky questions.
Tepper is trying to block the project. Yet Tepper would be the first one in line with a pitchfork in front of Eversource’s office if the gas goes out to 200,000 Massachusetts residents–even though she is the one who will have caused it. That’s how it works in leftist loony land. Blame others for the problems YOU create.
Eversource must do more research and outreach before the state decides whether to allow a controversial plan to install a secondary gas line through Springfield and Longmeadow.
In a 244-page response to the utility’s draft environmental impact report, Energy Secretary Rebecca L. Tepper asked Eversource to submit a supplement that answers additional questions.
“I have reviewed the draft environmental impact report and hereby determine that it does not adequately and properly comply with MEPA (the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act) and its implementing regulations,” she said.
Eversource has applied for approvals to construct a new 5.3-mile, 16-inch diameter gas pipeline, make upgrades to the existing Bliss Street Regulator Station in Springfield and build a new Point of Delivery facility in Longmeadow.
The $65 million project is in the midst of a years-long review. Eversource will continue to work with regulators and local stakeholders to meet requirements of the process, said Priscilla Ress, Eversource spokeswoman.
“We are working diligently to comply with all the necessary requirements as spelled out in MEPA’s recent request for a supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Report,” Ress said.
The project will also need other permits, including a zoning exemption from the state Department of Public Utilities, approvals from the Energy Facilities Siting Board and a highway access permit from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. It also needs Conservation Commission approvals from Longmeadow and Springfield, the state report said.
In its application, the company has argued that the new pipeline is needed as a backup to the existing 70-year-old system. The line serves people in Springfield, Longmeadow, Agawam, West Springfield, Southwick, East Longmeadow and Chicopee.
The company says a disruption in the current aging pipeline would impact 58,000 businesses and households and more than 200,000 people and could take eight weeks to repair and restore service, if the system were damaged for any reason.
Ress said a second source to deliver natural gas is critical for “such a large concentration of customers.”
“It is also important to note that this is not an expansion project, and any potential new customers in the area will still need to be served by the existing infrastructure,” Ress said.
The Longmeadow Board of Selectmen and its Planning Board, as well as the Springfield City Council, have voted against the proposal.
Activist and environmental groups, including the Interfaith Council of Greater Springfield, have written letters in opposition. The Springfield Climate Justice Coalition submitted a petition against the pipeline signed by 6,000 people who live across the state.
Trade unions are among those that support the project.
State’s critique
In her response to Eversource’s application, Tepper cited questions that have gone unanswered. She asked for more information to back up the company’s arguments for the pipeline.
The state report seeks more information about whether alternatives, such as trucking in gas in the case of an emergency, or the use of liquified or compressed natural gas, can be used during peak times instead of adding a second pipeline.
Tepper’s report questions why the region needs the pipeline and called for a study of alternatives to increasing use of fossil fuels.
“The (draft environmental impact report) has not fully justified the purpose and need for the project, and does not explain why the risk of outage was determined to be unacceptably high at this location so as to warrant immediate action,” the report said.
Tepper also called for Eversource to do more outreach in Springfield, which is considered an environmental justice community where more residents are poor, are racial minorities or don’t speak English well.
“The proponent should continue to conduct focused outreach in Springfield prior to filing the (supplement impact report) and should hold at least one, well-publicized public meeting in Springfield to discuss the impacts of the project,” the report said. “The meeting should be held in person at a location that is accessible by public transportation, and reasonable support services such as childcare and food should be provided to encourage attendance. The meeting should provide on-site interpretation in Spanish and Russian without the need for advance requests.”
Ress responded that of the 58,000 customers served by the pipeline, 33,000 are located in Springfield and it is important to ensure there is a resilient energy supply to “this important, vulnerable population.”
A spokeswoman for the Springfield Climate Justice Coalition did not return requests for comment Sunday. (1)
The editors at the local Springfield Republican newspaper (a misnomer if ever there was one) are squarely in the brainwashed “fossil fuels are evil camp,” writing this ignorant editorial:
Though the language is technical, a tone of disappointment is unmistakable in the state’s response to a proposed natural gas pipeline.
For Eversource, getting this project built in Longmeadow and Springfield will have to overcome not only entrenched local opposition, but what appear to be real doubts within the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs about the need for the $65 million pipeline, as well as concerns about its effect on the climate.
In a 28-page letter this month, Rebecca L. Tepper, the state’s energy and environment secretary, instructed Eversource to provide a supplement to its draft environmental impact report on the 5.3-mile pipeline. That may not sound like much of a lift to a big company, and a spokeswoman for Eversource said it is already at work on the additional filing.
But Tepper’s July 14 letter uses bold-face type to say, in no uncertain terms, that the company’s filing “does not adequately and properly” comply with the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act.
Again, these kinds of letters are dense with jargon and technicalities, as is the law itself. When Eversource’s supplement comes, here are some of the questions Tepper’s office will want to see answered in convincing fashion:
– Is it really needed? Eversource calls the pipeline the Western Massachusetts Gas Reliability Project. The company claims an existing pipeline, created in 1951 but updated periodically since then, could fail, causing an interruption in gas supplies to 200,000 people. Tepper and her team are not yet convinced.
“The DEIR has not fully justified the purpose and need for the project,” the letter says, “and does not explain why the risk of outage was determined to be unacceptably high at this location so as to warrant immediate action, as compared to other areas with aged infrastructure throughout the Proponent’s statewide distribution network.”
This is the proposed path of a gas pipeline. (Map courtesy of Eversource)
The state is demanding clear evidence of that need, in part because it seeks to avoid exposing people in disadvantaged “environmental justice” communities to harm. So far, the state says, Eversource has failed to “make clear why a new pipeline is now needed to deliver gas supply that is already being provided to the area in accordance with previously approved gas supply contracts.”
In short, where’s the need? Eversource may want to build a new pipeline, but it has to justify it. Problems with the current gas transmission system, the company says, would have a “dire” impact on customers.
As Tepper says, pointedly we think, the utility came up short in its filing. The draft impact report, she said, “did not explain why this risk is deemed to be present in this particular location within the Proponent’s statewide territories, nor does it point to any studies or historical precedents that would require prioritizing the mitigation of risk at this location.”
We join with many in wanting proof that there is really no alternative to digging a trench along roads from Longmeadow into Springfield, laying pipe and pinning as much as $33 million of the cost on customers.
– Is the proposed pipeline going to expand the company’s ability to deliver a greater volume of gas? That’s an issue because increasing the supply of gas isn’t supposed to be the point of the pipeline.
– What will the climate impacts be, given the reality of increased releases of greenhouse gas emissions through an expanded system? The state wants answers on that. In its draft environmental impact report, Eversource claims the pipeline would not increase risks of climate change.
– What alternatives could be found to providing gas to customers, in the event of a problem, that don’t involve a new pipeline whose cost would be borne in large part by ratepayers? Eversource’s filing says truck deliveries of compressed natural gas would not be feasible. Tepper’s letter insists on a more convincing response.
People are watching how this plays out. Leaders in both Springfield and Longmeadow are against the project. More than 6,000 people signed a petition opposing the pipeline. Here in the Valley, people clearly want alternatives to a big new investment in fossil-fuel energy supplies.
As Tepper writes, the company needs to address the question of this particular environmental impact – that of exacerbating a warming planet.
“The [draft impact statement] has failed to provide full justification for dismissing non-pipeline alternatives to the project, and has not shown why a ‘hybrid’ scenario of combining shorter term redundancy solutions (such as use of compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquified natural gas (LNG) to meet winter peak demand), combined with a longer term transition to other fuel sources, may not be a feasible option.”
Passing muster with the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act isn’t the only hurdle facing Eversource, but it’s a critical one. And given that last passage from Tepper, it sure seems like people in Boston will be taking a hard look at how Eversource threads the needle on the question of committing this region anew to a fossil-fuels future. (2)
It should take no more than a few months for Eversource to apply for permits and build this 5-mile pipeline, not a decade! No wonder people are moving out of Massachusetts in droves (just like New York).
(1) Springfield (MA) The Republican (Jul 23, 2023) – State says Eversource application for a second gas line in Springfield, Longmeadow is incomplete
(2) Springfield (MA) The Republican (Jul 31, 2023) – Eversource’s gas pipeline faces steep list of new questions (Editorial)