LAST WEEK, TENNESSEE GAS PIPELINE CO. began another series of open houses to provide important information about its proposed Northeast Energy Direct project aimed at bringing much-needed natural gas to Massachusetts and the region.
These open houses will add to a strong record of public outreach. We’ve held more than 70 meetings with town, county, and community groups, attended by more than 4,400 people. We have conducted direct outreach to 3,500 affected landowners, and will continue to work closely with them as we seek regulatory approval for the project from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
My team has listened and responded to questions and concerns as part of a continuing process to explain both the details of the NED project and why increasing the natural gas supply to New England is critical to lowering sky-high energy costs, enabling development of renewable energy, meeting climate goals, and maintaining and growing the economy.
We’ve done this in an open and transparent way, while also addressing arguments that have been put forward against the pipeline. To expand our outreach, we launched a website in August that focuses on issues related to NED. It also presents pertinent facts about the project and the region’s energy needs.
The input we have received from our outreach has already led to numerous adjustments to the project’s route, with the result that approximately 91 percent of the pipeline path in Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire will run along already established energy corridors to minimize possible impacts on nearby towns.
Along the way, we have found there are many residents in the communities near the proposed pipeline route and across the state who support NED. They include residents who are tired of paying some of the highest costs in the nation for gas and electricity, a direct result of the lack of adequate natural gas supplies in Massachusetts and New England; low-income households struggling to make ends meet; and small and large businesses whose energy costs are a substantial burden that threaten their ability to grow.
We have been criticized in some quarters for our engagement efforts and for publicizing the benefits that would result from the project. But we think it’s important for people to know as much as possible about NED and how it can work to solve the pressing energy problems facing Massachusetts and the region.
Natural gas is used not only to heat homes, but has become a main energy source for generating electricity, as Massachusetts and other states have moved to retire old fuel oil and coal electric generators and replace them with cleaner, natural gas-fired plants. These new, highly efficient gas generators have been instrumental in helping lower carbon emissions and advancing climate goals.
But the fact is that there isn’t enough natural gas to meet demand, particularly during the winter, when much of the gas supply is directed for heating. Although the use of natural gas as a source of electric generation and heating is steadily increasing, the infrastructure to supply the gas has lagged far behind. That is why already high electricity costs spike in the winter – and why, on the coldest days of the year, the region must revert to oil and coal to meet its electricity needs, which causes large increases in carbon emissions.
NED is designed to make abundant, domestically produced and low-cost natural gas more readily available to help Massachusetts and the region confront these issues. We have already signed long-term contracts representing about half of NED’s capacity with local distribution companies to provide gas for home use. Last week, we began a program to open NED capacity to electric distribution companies, and we are working with state regulatory bodies as they consider and fashion solutions to meet electric-generation needs.
In addition to the question of need, we have also sought to address concerns about safety and the environment. It’s important to know that TGP, a Kinder Morgan company, is not new to Massachusetts or the Northeast. We have been safely delivering gas to the state and region for 60 years. NED would be an extension of the existing TGP pipeline that today touches some 90 Massachusetts cities and towns.
Our safety record during these years of service is well-established, and we utilize the latest technology, including state-of-the-art systems that allow us to monitor our pipeline operations around the clock, to ensure we can deliver gas to the region day in and day out without incident.
TGP also adheres to strict environmental standards, which include compliance with rules affecting everything from water quality to wildlife habitat. In past pipeline projects, the right-of-ways along which we have built have been ecologically renewed. And in many cases, once barren landscapes are now capped by green, natural growth.
We know and expect that the NED project will continue to draw close scrutiny. But we are committed to conducting an open and ongoing dialogue about NED, and to answering questions and providing information at open meetings, on our website, and in the frequent interactions we have not only with landowners and community residents but with a wide range of stakeholders.
Kimberly S. Watson is president of Kinder Morgan’s East Region Gas Pipelines.
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Those of us who have attended these “open houses” are struck by the evasion, bizarrre and nonsensical graphs, and pictures of compressor stations that look like pool cabanas, rather than anything resembling the actual size. Thousands of MA residents have had to engage in independent research to find out anything at all about what this portends. It is chilling to see what a billionaire company can get away with, and no one in the DPU is holding them accountable. This is for export$$$ of heavily tax payer subsidized U.S. gas to further swell the off shore accounts of those at the top of the Kinder Morgan chain (Enron pays!). Export terminals in Northern ME and Nova Scotia are the goal, and all of this is being ginned up to effect a swindle of our state, and hard working MA taxpayers: the gas will only be cheap until they export . . . . How stupid can our leadership be . . . oh, baksheesh . . . yuh.
P.S.: Kinder Morgan is deliberately locating this through the most populated rural areas, and through drinking water supplies. They have submitted maps to FERC that are many decades old that do not show just how many people will be living in “incineration zones” with both enormous quantities of very different “unnatural gas” (VOC’s, endocrine disruptors, neurotoxins) in close proximity to massive amounts of live voltage: and the DPU couldn’t care less: neither evidently does our Governor, They are deliberately running through conservation land, too, in an effort to over ride article 97 of the state’s constitution: to make a big example of us (Massachusetts) nationally.
I understand that this is an opinion piece, but is brazen fibbing considered opinion? This lady is neck-deep!
If you do not like skyrocketing rates, support the continuing use of coal and nuclear power. ISO-NE is forced by mandates contained in the Green Communities Act and the Global Warming Solutions Act to transition to a fossil fuel free power grid future. Fossil fuel free means mostly variable and intermittent wind and solar, which cannot coexist with coal and nuclear, They are too slow to balance the volatile power output from wind and solar. Hence the huge demand for natural gas.
While we all yearn for a fossil fuel free energy future, what we are going to get are skyrocketing rates from a monopolistic system overly dependent on natural gas, which, after all, is a fossil fuel.
Tell Beacon Hill to stop pushing renewables. They are far from ready for prime time. Keep the coal and nuclear power plans running at least until the y are exhausted. They may be old but they are far from useless.
If you really want to know what these monster companies are doing to people and the environment just go to YouTube and type in “living near a compressor station”. Here’s one for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPjeC_kTzVo … and this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7WAJ3ReKH0
They don’t care about you and me, or the impact to this planet, they only care about the almighty dollar and they will say and do anything to get what they want. If FERC passes the NED project then a major audit needs to be performed on them because they are in violation of what they have been put in place for (to protect people and the environment from horrific projects like this) and are most likely getting paid off. Fix the issues you have today with your poorly maintained infrastructure KM and TGP. Stop picking on the little guys and trying to ruin small rural towns that want nothing to do with these massive, air polluting compressor stations. And especially don’t make us pay for it through a tax tariff.
If anyone believes that KM has the people or this planet in their best interest, then please give this a read:
http://www.newipswichpipeline.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/SI_Report_Kinder-Morgan_12-04-14.pdf
No mention of their safety and maintenance cutbacks by Ms. Watson!
‘Wall Street Worries about Kinder Morgan’s Safety Record’
‘Kinder Morgan Accidents and Safety Violations’
Yes, their safety record is well-established. Well-established as one of the worst in the industry. How does this woman sleep at night? You did public outreach?! Good for you. 4,400 people attended? Why do you think sooooo many people wanted to come to your meetings? If you’re committed to an open dialogue, explain to me how my asthmatic son and husband will continue to be able to breathe when your 41K Compressor Station is plunked down in my neighborhood. Can you provide me with an enticing narrative of how fast methane is converted to formaldehyde when the sunlight meets it? Explain to the 800 families in close vicinity of your planned NED Station in Nassau, NY just how their clean air and pristine water supplies and peace and quiet will never come back. Give us the rationale for the severe impacts incredible, well-established species of waterfowl and migratory birds that we will never see again due to the 24/7 noise and pollution–not to mention all the other species. Explain how all we worked for and invested in can be so meaningless to your corporate bottom line. Show me the monetary value of our community history, stories, connections, and places. Tell us again how this gas will serve the Northeast when we all know most of it will be exported for profit. Provide me with “feedback” about how NY ratepayers will foot the bill for your infrastructure expansion with a tariff on their utility bills, while your export activities built on the backs of our communities, and will only drive our gas prices up–in addition to the tarrifs. Explain to me how you can use the words “ecologically renewed” in this context without making yourself sick to your stomach. Shame on you for your slate of corporate doublespeak. It might help you sleep at night but hundreds of thousands of people in the Northeast just aren’t buying it, Kimberly. Shame on you and on your company and parent company and and all their little babies and subsidiaries who signed your contracts. Enjoy your Ambien tonight.
Make the invisible “clean energy,” visible. https://youtu.be/UwAvP-vrHsw
what a line of bull crap. Not one mention of all the health effects of their equipment, valve stations & especially compressor stations. It is insane bullshit. Bad deal, profit only, & no “we are are a good f…g neighbor. FU.
No mention of electricity ratepayers investing billions in gas pipeline infrastructure to ship it for export too whereby increased demand will raise the cost of domestic customers? Let’s talk about that.
Talk about externalized costs at the site of extraction. Those people are Americans too.
Natural gas was pitched as a bridge fuel but It has become the fuel we are most dependent on for electricity generation and home heating? Is home-heating with gas instead of heating oil a big win for green house gas emissions? Natural gas is carbon-based just as heating oil is. When it leaks into
the atmosphere it is a far more powerful greenhouse gas.
So why are electricity ratepayers being asked to finance billion dollar pipeline projects if the point of a bridge is to cross to the other side?
This debate, like so many debates about public policy that involves corporate profit, is frustrating to folks who want responsible solutions.