Kinder Morgan board approves new gas pipeline for Mass.
KINDER MORGAN
The purple line shows a revised pipeline route proposed by Kinder Morgan that would travel through southern New Hampshire.
The board of Kinder Morgan, the parent company of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company (TGP), has voted to move forward with a 188-mile-long gas pipeline expansion project from New York to Massachusetts.
The vote authorizes the TGP’s Northeast Energy Direct (NED) project’s “market path” segment of 188 miles of new and co-located gas pipeline from Wright, N.Y., to Dracut, Mass. Previous to this vote the project was technically a proposal by TGP.
According to Kinder Morgan, the project will serve the needs of the region and help alleviate demand for natural gas – especially in the winter months when it is used for both heating and energy production.
“We are excited that the market path component is moving forward and a determination now has been made on mainline capacity for the project,” Kinder Morgan East Region Pipelines President Kimberly S. Watson said in a statement.
At 30 inches in diameter, the pipeline will serve energy commitments from natural gas distribution companies as well as expected commitments from gas-fired electricity generation companies, she said in a release. The decision to go with a 30-inch pipeline, rather than 36 inches or a combination of the two as previously proposed, was a result of ongoing negotiations with customers through a public dialogue as well as an evaluation of needs, Watson said.
“We have made numerous adjustments to the proposed right-of-way in order to minimize potential impacts on nearby towns and communities, resulting in approximately 91% of the proposed NED market path segment being co-located along existing utility corridors, and we have also eliminated the need for two of nine proposed lateral lines and related facilities,” she said.
The pending project, which is subject to lengthy review, was previously proposed to have TGP building a 36-inch pipeline through about 40 communities across the northern part of Massachusetts. This would have linked a distribution center in Dracut with shale fields in Pennsylvania, where natural gas is harvested through fracking, which itself has generated opposition from fracking opponents in Massachusetts. Opponents have cited environmental concerns about the pipeline.
The new path for the pipeline, proposed in December 2014, shifts much of the pipeline into New Hampshire. This path bypasses 13 communities in Massachusetts that would previously have had the pipeline pass through them. These include Athol, Ashburnham and Winchendon. However, newly impacted Massachusetts communities include Cheshire, Hancock, Lanesborough and Shelbourne, according to TGP.
Last month, Kinder Morgan canceled plans for a "lateral" pipeline that would have run through parts of Worcester, Berlin, Boylston, Northborough, Shrewsbury, Bolton and West Boylston.
Ongoing hearings are underway with the Federal Regulatory Commission regarding the project. TGP intends to file the certificate application for the project in October 2015, Watson said. Subject to the timely receipt of necessary regulatory permits, NED is anticipated to commence service in November 2018.
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