I went to the Spectra Open House last night. The gas companies are very good at playing the 'good neighbor' role when they want something. (they'll even be good neighbors when they contaminate your underground drinking water and supply you with bottled water as long as you sign a non-disclosure). They had a full spread of take home goodies, pastries, & drinks. You were paired with a representative to walk you through the display of photos and other info. By doing it this way those that come in unknowing, leave unknowing because they don't get to hear the questions and answers from another person. My representative worked for a company called 'global' and didn't know anything about natural gas. He didn't know that the companies were exempt from the clean air and water act, he didn't know if there was anything in writing to regulate their response time to a leak, he didn't know that compressor stations had toxic emissions. But he was happy to find people to answer my questions. In the end I was in a discussion with 6 Spectra Reps.

They said that the JC pipeline portion would be 30". There will most likely be a metering station around Jersey & 18th near the Exxon station. They will have a fence around it. It will give off a certain amount of noise and emissions. They couldn't answer how much. There weren't plans for security cameras around it but they were open to discussing the need for it.

Most cities and homeowners end up in very expensive law suits with these companies and settle because they can't keep up the fight against the power house. If it's within our rights, our city needs to negotiate certain key points and have contracts with Spectra outlining what the consequences will be should they fail to meet certain air standards etc.

The Wish List

1. Gas company should have to pay for an independent air quality test to be done before they start the pipeline (company doing it picked by JC not gas company) . We need to be able to compare the air quality before and after the pipeline goes in.
2. Pre-determine what the acceptable noise levels and emissions should be once this thing goes in.
3. Metering station should be a nicely designed building with vegetation around it, not an unsightly fence, with designs approved by perhaps the downtown neighborhood association. There needs to be lights so that pedestrians can walk at night around the area and security cameras to deter terrorists. The details need to be in a contract between the city and the gas companies.


Questions:
1. Who's responsible if the worker's leave the area a complete mess after laying in their pipeline? Who pays to haul away the debris?
2. How long will a homeowner live with the drilling outside of their home?
3. What hours are they allowed to work? Will they be starting at 5 in the morning and working till 11pm? Where will it be written exactly what time they can start and stop working? Quality of life noise issue.
4. Will there be trucks coming into and out of our small side streets all day and all night delivering materials?

And when Spectra says that there won't be noise issues, there won't be trucks all over the place making us feel like we're living in a military zone, that there won't be workers outside your front door at 4 in the morning, and that their soda cans and other garbage won't be left on your front lawn, what recourse will we have when they don't play the good neighbor?

Please call your representatives and support these bills. Otherwise they will never get to the floor and the gas companies will continue to operate with next to no regulation.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery ... 766:|/bss/111search.html|

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery ... 215:|/bss/111search.html|

Spectra will be holding informational meetings to answer questions about it's proposed pipeline expansion through Jersey City and Bayonne. The meetings will be held over the next few weeks as follows:

Wednesday, March 3rd -Jersey City
6 p.m. - 8 p.m. at Liberty House Restaurant

Thursday, March 4th - Linden
6 p.m. - 8 p.m. at Linden Room Hampton Inn
501 West Edgar Road, Linden, NJ

Tuesday, March 9th - Jersey City
6 p.m. - 8 p.m. at P.S. 9 - Gym 222 Mercer Street

Monday, March 15th - Bayonne
6 p.m. - 8 p.m. CWV Post 1612
18 West 23rd Street, Bayonne
(Public parking across the street.)

Wednesday, March 17th - Bayonne
6 p.m. - 8 p.m. - Trinity Church (Trinity Parish in Bergen Point)
141 Broadway, Bayonne

Gasland



http://www.variety.com/review/VE11179 ... html?categoryId=2471&cs=1

Who could have anticipated that one of the most effective and expressive environmental films of recent years would be the work of a Gotham theater director who's never before made a doc? Nobody, perhaps least writer-director Josh Fox, whose "GasLand" may become to the dangers of natural gas drilling what "Silent Spring" was to DDT. The rare example of cinema art that is also an organizing tool, the pic has a level of research, gutsiness and energy that should generate sensational response everywhere it plays.

Narrating a first-person account, Fox relates how a natural gas company made him a lease offer for $100,000 from a natural gas company to explore on his land, which includes the house his parents built in Pennsylvania's Delaware River Basin abutting upstate New York.Fox begins to do his own research on drilling, and leaves countless unreturned messages with natural gas drillers like Halliburton.

Congress' 2005 Energy Policy Act, crafted by former vice president (and ex-Halliburton exec) Dick Cheney, exempts the hydraulic fracturing drilling process used by natural gas companies (known as "fracking") from long-held environmental regulations such as the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Freed from customary laws, natural gas companies have drilled like wildcatters in 34 states where huge shale fields contain gas deposits.

Once Fox learns that his beloved Delaware River watershed is being targeted by drillers as part of the massive Marcellus Shale field, he goes on the road to track down residents living near drilling sites. This is seat-of-pants investigating that yields astonishing and disturbing findings, not least of which is how the residents can customarily light a flame near their tap water outlet and set the polluted water on fire. As Fox ventures west, to Colorado, Wyoming and Texas, states riddled with natural gas drill sites, he documents horror story after horror story.

The primary cause is the cornucopia of toxic chemicals, blended with water, which must be used in fracking. Infrared-camera footage records venting of polluting gases coming off drill rigs, crushing the myth that natural gas is "clean" and a greenhouse solution. In vivid animation and graphics, Fox illustrates how the continent-wide explosion of fracking projects threatens watersheds and river basins, the source of drinking water.

For all of its engaging information, the film itself is a piece of beautiful cinema, rough-hewn and poetic, often musical in its rhythms and about as far from the "professional" doc that's the stock-and-trade of Sundance, where "GasLand" is vying in the U.S. competish. The marriage of sound and image (Fox joins Matthew Sanchez on lensing, and Brian Scibinico on sound) veers between nightmarish moods and lyrical reveries, even while the camera peers into the faces of government and corporate officials.

A combo of fest and grassroots exhibition, with viral networking, is part of the pic's goal to push for new federal controls on fracking (now being considered in Congress). But if a film can ever enact social change, which is rare, the potency of "GasLand" suggests that this may be that film.

Gas companies take advantage of communities that don't have the facts about how vicious they are.

Read the comments at the end of the article of these poor people:

http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/dimo ... ural-gas-driller-1.430439

This is truly disturbing. There is a comment about a little old man that came and asked a property owner if they could drill and said they would only drill in one place, only to have drilled more than once!

We should ALL be worried about this. Here is a better version of the trailer the word has to be spread. Not only that, you can vote on the trailer between 1 and 10. GASLAND: Yes we must spread the word...

while they are digging trenches for the pipe line, cityhall should look at the $'s to upgrade the sewer line as well and share the costs. At least the interuption could have a dual purpose.

Quote:

The pipe will be 42".

http://pipelinesinternational.com/new ... tras_new_pipeline/009366/

Imagine if each of the frequent water line ruptures in the downtown area had been on a 20 inch or larger gas line.
The last two UNDER the light rail track and immediately adjacent to Target, Best Buys, A&P NJTransit station, etc.

Has anyone seen the proposed routing through the County? Through Paulus Hook, Exchange Place or Newport?

Where will the pipeline exit to go under the Hudson?

The map in the first post is crypic showing the existing HESS pipeline as beginning somewhere in Weehawken around Kennedy Boulevard, an obvious impossiblity becasue I KNOW there are no gas wells there . So they are showing the need for the "link" while ignoring the already existing connection...presumably to somewhere like Texas. Methinks that NYC is getting a steady flow of gas through this Hess link and it is for mere corporate convenience to connect to the TRANSCO piipe running up the largely uninhabited Meadowlands.

Jersey City Gas Pipelines New Google Group Formed by Councilman Steven Fulop! I've formed a Google group with Councilman Steven Fulop's support, to provide an ongoing site for discussion, info updates and source data involving Spectra Energy and Williams Transco and their plans for gas pipelines in Jersey City and Bayonne. Please join our group, add discussion threads, send us info to post, links, videos, so that we might inform everyone about Spectra Energy and Williams Transco plans to add gas pipelines in Jersey City and Bayonne.

Lautenberg says natural gas pipeline shouldn't go through Bayonne and Jersey City

Great News!

In the aftermath of Sunday's deadly gas explosion at a gas-fired power plant in Connecticut, New Jersey Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg wants to halt plans to build a natural gas pipeline through Bayonne and Jersey City.

Lautenberg says natural gas pipeline shouldn't go through Bayonne and Jersey City
By Charles Hack/The Jersey Journal
February 09, 2010, 6:00AM

In the aftermath of Sunday's deadly gas explosion at a gas-fired power plant in Connecticut, New Jersey Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg wants to halt plans to build a natural gas pipeline through Bayonne and Jersey City.

Five people were killed and 12 others were injured in an explosion at the Kleen Energy Systems gas plant Sunday in Middletown, Conn., that was under construction. Investigators are trying to identify the cause of the explosion.

"The explosion raises a red flag about the construction of a natural gas line that would run through New Jersey primarily for the benefit of New York," Lautenberg said in a statement. "This risky project should not be permitted so close to New Jersey's chemical plants, Newark Liberty Airport and the area that terrorism experts call the most dangerous two miles in America."

On Dec. 28, Spectra Energy Corp., a Houston-based energy company, announced an agreement to run a 16-mile pipeline from Texas Eastern's pipeline in Staten Island through Bayonne and Jersey City to a Con Edison plant in Manhattan. Lautenberg said he would meet with New Jersey with Spectra Energy and federal officials to raise concerns about safety.

Bayonne spokesman Joseph Ryan could not be reached yesterday, but has told The Jersey Journal the administration has been working with Spectra to come up with a way of building the pipeline "that is the least disruptive way possible." Jersey City Ward E Councilman Steve Fulop and Ward A Councilman Michael Sottolano, whose wards would include a portion of the pipeline, said they want more information from Spectra before the city grants approval for a site survey.

Spectra is not the only company to request Jersey City officials to conduct site surveys, the first step in a federal application process to install a pipeline. Williams, of Tulsa, Okla., already has applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permission to extend its Transco Gas Line in Essex County through Bayonne. It calls for slightly more than eight-tenths of a mile of new pipeline from Newark to an existing Hess petroleum line, which would be converted to natural gas. The Hess line is 5.41 miles long and runs along the New Jersey Turnpike extension along Route 440 to New Hook Access Road, where the Bayonne Energy Center would be constructed. The estimated cost is $17.2 million.

Neither Spectra nor Williams could be reached for comment.

--Journal staff writer Melissa Hayes and the AP contributed to this report.

Just today another gas line explosion!

========================================

'Mass casualties' reported after explosion at Kleen Energy Systems power plant in Middleton, Conn

BY OREN YANIV
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, February 7th 2010

A massive explosion at a Connecticut power plant shook the ground Sunday, killing at least two people and injuring several others, according to reports.

The gas line explosion happened around 11:30 a.m.in the Kleen Energy Plant at Middletown, about 15 miles south of Hartford.

Fire department crews and ambulances from all across the area racing to the scene.

"They were doing some kind of testing, we don't know what kind, but something obviously went wrong and there was a large explosion," said Middletown Police Sgt. Chuck Jabobeucci.

About 100 employees were working at the 620-megawatt gas-fired plant.
Bernadette Nyland told a local TV station she saw the blast from her yard.

"They were doing the firing of the engines this morning and so something went wrong and it blew up and flames came shooting up almost as tall as that stack," she said.

People from towns as far as 25 miles away reported feeling earthquake-like tremors from the explosion and some homes near the plant were damaged.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/natio ... nt_in_.html#ixzz0esOU4IsS

Hey look, it's the 1994 Edison natural gas explosion Fulop was talking about. Mommy! Keep that thing away from my dwelling.

A little more info about that thar pipeline. From 12" to 42"? That's gonna be one big motha. (It sounds like this pipeline is already a done deal.)

http://pipelinesinternational.com/new ... tras_new_pipeline/009366/

Chesapeake signs on to ship with Spectra?s new pipeline



January 06, 2010

Spectra Energy?s proposed 26 km pipeline will ship gas from Chesapeake Energy?s Marcellus Shale production to serve the growing natural gas market in metropolitan New York.

The new pipeline will extend from Spectra?s existing metering and regulating station at Staten Island through Bayonne and Jersey City to Manhatten.

Spectra?s New Jersey ? New York expansion project also includes the replacement of 8 km of existing 12 inch and 20 inch diameter pipelines with a single 42 inch diameter pipeline from a compressor station at Linden to Staten Island, the construction of three new metering and regulating stations in Morris County and Jersey City as well as modifications to existing compressor stations.

Spectra?s expansion project will increase the capacity of its existing Texas Eastern and Algonquin Gas Transmission pipelines to 800 MMcf/d of gas.
Cheseapeake is the largest capacity holder with a commitment of up to 425 MMcf/d of gas.

The expansion is expected to be in service by the end of 2013.

From Energy Pipeline News
http://www.energypipelinenews.com.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2010

Spectra plans 16-mile gas pipeline in New Jersey

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - Homeowners in Jersey City and Bayonne, N.J., will have the opportunity in March to find out more about a proposed pipeline running through their town.
That?s when Spectra Energy Corp., based in Houston, Texas, plans to hold public meetings to inform the public about a 16-mile pipeline extension through Bayonne and Jersey City. The line would allow natural gas to flow from its existing metering and regulating station in Staten Island, N.Y., through Hudson County into Manhattan.

The gas would initially come from Pennsylvania to the tri-state area, and the pipeline would transport up to 800 million cubic feet per day of new natural gas supplies. It could be in service by the end of 2013.

Spectra spokesperson Marylee Henley said the supply will be primarily received by the New York utility Con Edison. She said the reason for the pipeline expansion was one of demand. ?In the Northeast, there is a greater need for natural gas,? Henley said.

After a site survey is done, the pipeline project will have to be approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), according to Henley.

I am with you and Fulop on this. This is for NYC NOT
the taxpayers of Jersey City and Bayonne. We need to be more adamant about WHAT'S IN IT FOR US here and if our representatives don't represent OUR interests they need to be replaced. If it's not enough compensation for the majority of the people here, the gas co. needs to be told TAKE A HIKE. Route it through Staten Island, a part of NYC.

Remember too that this natural gas supply is NOT for Hudson County but the County is merely a conduit for gas that is to benefit residents and businesses of New York City.

Jersey City will receive NO benefit other than some cash payment which isn't spelled out in the annnouncements.

As nearly the most densely populated County in the United States (actually the MOST densely populated multi-city county) Hudson County is NOT the proper place to route a pipeline. An accident would have dire consequences with such a tightly packed population.

I'm with Fulop, this proposal is wrong headed.

I think this issue goes far beyond the pipeline that will travel to JC. Natural gas companies are exempt from the clean water and the clean air act. The DEC has age old regulations that don't address the current drilling technology and the DEC doesn't have the manpower to inspect the wells. It's the wild west when it comes to natural gas drilling. We're told that it's the clean burning fuel of the future, but will there be a future? When all of our streams, creeks, and rivers are contaminated, when we've poisoned our fish and different animal species become extinct, and when we all have benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, styrene, o-xylene, 1,2,4 - Trimethylbenzene in our blood, can't move, can't smell anything, and have lost our quality of life will we look back and say, "well that was worth it"?

Natural Gas drilling came to places like Garfield County in Colorado 20 years ago. Now people have serious health problems, can't sell their land/houses, and many farm animals can't reproduce. Diana DeGette from Colorado has a bill before The Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment that would place the Natural Gas Companies under EPA regulation (Dick Cheney had them exempted from the Clean Water Act in 2005).

If you care about the future of our country I urge you to call your representatives and have them support this bill.

In regards to JC, what's the route of the pipeline and the size of the pipeline (24", 36")? Will there be compressor stations for the pipeline? Will there be an independent (not paid for by the gas companies) air quality test done before the pipeline is built so that we have something to compare the air quality to after the system is in place. And if the air quality is affected, do we have the ability to shut down the energy center? Stop the pipeline from being used? Who is responsible? What regulations exist for the companies to follow? Who will be testing the water that will be pumped back into the Bayonne Sewer System from the Bayonne Energy Center? Can the city's waste water system filter out the toxins that may be in it?

Some recent news:

http://www.fwweekly.com/index.php?opt ... =76:metropolis&Itemid=377

http://www.propublica.org/feature/fra ... s-stream-killing-fish-921

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison- ... th-new-york_b_437184.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5422TG20090504

The reuters article is about Hickory, PA. During a subcommittee hearing it was said that there are now 400 households on bottled water being supplied by the gas company because of contaminated water. We don't know about it because they (like most throughout the country) have had to sign non-disclosures in order to get clean water.

Sometimes when driving around Jersey City, I have smelled an overwhelming natural gas scent around Newark Avenue, near the cemetary, and on Montgomery above Merseles.

Does the old pipeline run around those places?

Pipe may run through Jersey City, Bayonne
City councilman concerned about gas company?s proposal

by Ricardo Kaulessar
Reporter Staff Writer

Jersey City and Bayonne homeowners will have the opportunity in March to find out more about a proposed pipeline running through their town.

That?s when Spectra Energy Corp., based in Houston, Tex., plans to hold public meetings to inform the public about a 16-mile pipeline extension through Bayonne and Jersey City. The line would allow natural gas to flow from its existing metering and regulating station in Staten Island, N.Y., through Hudson County into Manhattan.

The gas would initially come from Pennsylvania to the tri-state area, and would transport up to 800 million cubic feet per day of new natural gas supplies. It could be in service by the end of 2013.
_____________

?This project is a detriment to the city; I don?t really see the benefit.? ? Steven Fulop
________

Spectra spokesperson Marylee Henley said the supply will be primarily received by the New York utility Con Edison. She said the reason for the pipeline expansion was one of demand. ?In the Northeast, there is a greater need for natural gas,? Henley said.

The public meetings, whose exact dates have not yet been determined, are part of the early process in putting down any pipeline. The meetings will help the company determine which route the pipeline will take as to not pose any problems to residents.

After a site survey is done, the pipeline project will then have to be approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), according to Henley.

Henley said Spectra reached out initially to Jersey City officials last spring about the project in order to get authorization to do a site study of the relevant areas in Jersey City. She said those officials were ?very interested? in learning more about the project. Discussions are continuing.

But at least one city official is not interested in seeing the pipeline come to fruition anytime soon.

Piping up in opposition

Jersey City Councilman Steven Fulop acknowledged recently that Spectra had reached out to him as well as several other City Council members about their project last year.

But he said he saw those talks as just ?preliminary discussions? that will not materialize. He said he is very concerned about what Spectra has in mind, as he believes the pipeline will run through downtown Jersey City, which he represents on the council.

Fulop said the proposed Spectra project brings back bad memories of a pipeline explosion in his hometown of Edison in central New Jersey in 1994, when Fulop was 17 years old. That explosion, known officially as the Texas Eastern Transmission Corporation Natural Gas Pipeline Explosion and Fire, occurred in March of that year, when a natural gas pipeline broke and exploded into flames next to an apartment complex not far from Fulop?s high school.

The explosion destroyed many of the apartment buildings in the complex and caused the death of one woman.

Coincidentally, the Spectra pipeline project would be an expansion of the same Texas Eastern Transmission pipeline that runs from Texas and the Gulf Coast to the Northeast United States.

?I wrote a letter to the council and to Mayor [Jerramiah] Healy about not allowing them to do a site survey,? Fulop said. ?It was for the reason that once they do the site survey, you can?t stop the process.?

Fulop said he reached out to Spectra and asked that they hold public meetings to get input before conducting the site survey. But he said a Spectra rep told him that they will do the site survey and then do the public meetings.

?This project is a detriment to the city; I don?t really see the benefit,? Fulop said.

Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.

Has there been a population boom anywhere for the second pipeline ?

More than 20 years ago, NY state legislators stopped a second line, what happened? More development, more need for natural gas, higher prices. We need a second line.

Quote:

I think what you are saying is that 20% of NJ's electricity is produced using natural gas, which is true - also the same amount that comes from coal. 53% of the state's electricity comes from nuclear.

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/states/electricity.cfm/state=NJ

Natural gas prices are high because there is a monopoly on its delivery. PSE&G get away with an extremely high delivery charge - the rate consumers pay for the actual gas they consume is competitive with other suppliers. The proposed pipeline would do nothing to change that; there is no power production along the planned spur. The additional capacity would merely serve NY and perhaps a few odd industrial users.

The reason natural gas is very high, there is only one piple line, a second line would hold the cost. Plus, our state creates electricity with natural gas, other states uses coal. 20% of NJ natural gas is used for electricity. There is not a shortage of natural gas in this country only a shortage of pipelines.

Companies look to run natural gas pipeline through Jersey City and Bayonne By The Jersey Journal January 02, 2010, 11:54AM One of the plans to run a natural gas pipeline through Jersey City and Bayonne calls for converting an existing Hess petroleum pipeline (in green) to carry natural gas from Essex County to the planned Bayonne Energy Center. Two companies are proposing to run a natural gas pipeline through Jersey City and Bayonne in order to get more of the fuel to New York, today's Jersey Journal reports. Williams, of Tulsa, Okla., has already has applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permission to convert an existing petroleum pipeline that runs from Essex County through Jersey City and Bayonne, the paper reports. Houston-based Spectra Energy, meanwhile, has approached Jersey City City Council members whose wards would be affected by the proposed gas pipeline, the paper said. Bayonne spokesman Joe Ryan told reporter Melissa Hayes that the city administration has been working with Spectra to come up with a way of building the pipeline in the least disruptive way possible. The pipeline is to bring gas to the planned Bayonne Energy Center, which will provide power to New York City. In Jersey City, meanwhile, at least two council members are concerned about the idea. Full story: Gas line coming? ================== GAS LINE COMING? Saturday, January 02, 2010 By MELISSA HAYES JOURNAL STAFF WRITER Jersey City, Bayonne wooed for pipeline PUSHING PIPELINE PLAN 2 firms woo Hudson, aim to serve NYC A natural gas line to New York could make its way through Jersey City and Bayonne. Two companies have asked Jersey City officials to conduct site surveys, the first step in a federal application process to install a pipeline. One of those companies, Williams, of Tulsa, Okla., already has applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permission to extend its pipeline in Essex County through Bayonne. The other company, Houston-based Spectra Energy, has approached Jersey City City Council members whose wards would be impacted by the proposed gas pipeline. Ward E Councilman Steve Fulop and Ward A Councilman Michael Sottolano both said they want more information from Spectra before the city grants approval for a site survey. "Allowing them to do the site survey is akin to inviting Dracula into the blood bank," Fulop said. "There is no good conclusion from that." Williams also wants to conduct a survey in the city, but Fulop and Sottolano said the company did not approach them directly.