Pipeline victory!

 The PennEast pipeline company was supposed to present a federal judge with the case for eminent domain proceedings against 18 landowners.  Among those landowners were Linda and I.  The PennEast attorney told the judge that the company had decided to forego the proceedings–something about the “regulatory climate” no longer favoring pipelines.

The company probably will keep the plans for the pipeline in corporate headquarters somewhere, but this pipeline is kaput, dead, gone.  After a seven-year battle, the opponents won. The people fighting the pipeline demonstrated, wrote letters, appealed to legislators, held press conferences and fundraisers and hired lawyers and they won.  The opponents testified to the Federal Energy Commission, the Delaware River Basin Commission, county commissioners, township supervisors, the Army Corps of Engineers, and they won.

Given the accelerating global warming, the defeat of a fossil fuel procured by pumping radioactive poisons into the ground is not only a victory for the pipeline opponents, but also a victory for the planet.

And here I must give a shout-out to Linda Christman, one of the leaders in the fight to stop this pipeline.  PennEast had no idea what was about to hit them.