Linda and I attended a meeting in Hellertown tonight where we learned that 70% of the New Jersey landowners in the path of the PennEast/UGI fracking gas pipeline have refused to allow PennEast surveyors on their property. In Pennsylvania the number is 30%. They know how to fight back in New Jersey.
We also learned that if you negotiate with PennEast/UGI to sell your easement rights and the pipeline blows up and kills your neighbor, you can be sued, since you entered into a voluntary agreement. In addition, the company has a good claim to expand on its easement–for example, a second pipeline. On the other hand, if you force the company into eminent domain proceedings, while you can still be sued if the pipeline blows, you will almost assuredly win the lawsuit, since you did not enter in the easement voluntarily.
The meeting organizers also noted that any comments made before the official filing in late September will now be deleted. If you want to make any comments on the pipeline, you must be an “intervener.” Say you are disturbed that Beltzville State Park will have a gash running through it, or you are worried about the pipeline disturbing wetlands along Spruce Hollow Road, or you think the pipeline harms agricultural production. You must be an intervenor to make those comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Tomorrow I will tell you how to file as an intervener. Being an intervener doesn’t obligate you to comment, but if you do decide to comment, you must be on the list.
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