Algonquin gas pipeline project sparks safety concerns

Residents from around the Lower Hudson Valley who have been organizing against a plan to replace large sections of the Algonquin natural gas pipeline to increase its capacity are expected to turn out in force Monday at a public hearing related to the project.

The pipeline spans Rockland County and also runs through Westchester and Putnam counties before heading to Connecticut and on to Boston. Spectra Energy, which owns the pipeline, plans to replace 20.1 miles of existing pipe in New York and Connecticut with 42-inch diameter pipe, up from a 26-inch diameter pipe now.

Opponents have raised concerns about environmental and health impacts, questioning the potential for leaks, quality of life impacts and environmental damage from the construction, the safety of expanding the pipeline close to the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan and other issues.

"We're very frightened," said Suzannah Glidden of North Salem, co-founder of Stop Algonquin Pipeline Expansion, or SAPE. "I live very close to it."

Spectra believes the expansion is needed to meet demand in New England, where 60 percent of the electricity is generated by natural gas, according to Marylee Hanley, the director of stakeholder outreach at the Texas company.

Monday's hearing is for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates natural gas transmission, to gather comments on a Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The meeting is Monday at 6:30 p.m. at the Muriel H. Morabito Community Center, 29 Westbrook Drive in Cortlandt.

Many residents, backed by government officials from around the region, have called for health and safety studies to be conducted before any permits are issued.

Entergy, the owner of Indian Point, is preparing a hazards analysis and Spectra is studying issues that might arise from the proximity to electric transmission lines, according to the DEIS. Other studies are also in the works.

Glidden said SAPE and other groups have asked the commission to withdraw the environmental impact statement until the studies are completed.

"Those should all be finished and we, the public, should be able to review them," she said.

The new sections of pipeline are to be installed from Haverstraw under the Hudson River to Yorktown and from Southeast into Connecticut. The work will be done in the existing rights of way, except for a section of new pipeline in Massachusetts, Hanley said.

"We are going to go right into that same ditch," she said.

There are two compressor stations along the pipeline, one in Stony Point and one in Southeast, that keep the gas moving and will be modified as part of the project.

Susan Filgueras, a board member of the Stony Point Action Committee for the Environment, who lives near the route, said she wants to know "exactly what's going to come out of that compressor station."

But she also said Spectra representatives haves been willing to talk to officials and residents about their concerns and she is optimistic that they can learn to live together.

"I'm a whole lot hopeful because they're not a ghost," she said.

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