Constitution Pipeline Thursday filed its formal application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for its 122-mile, $683 million natural gas pipeline from Pennsylvania through Schoharie County.
FERC will now spend 8-10 months reviewing the application and Constitution's environmental reports, said spokesman Christopher Stockton.
If the project gets the go-ahead, construction will begin almost immediately.
"We've condensed the construction schedule quite a bit," Mr. Stockton said Monday. "It's a big project and there's a tight timeline. Work would begin right away."
Mr. Stockton called the FERC filing a milestone and said that though they're still working with some landowners and could "tweak" the application even it's been submitted, he's comfortable with the route changes they made.
"Since we began our outreach last spring, there have been changes to about 50 percent of the original route," he said.
"I think that demonstrates that we were listen to people's concerns and try to accommodate them."
In general, he said, the proposed route follows the I-88 corridor, but not on the highway's shoulder or median as some had suggested.
As part of the project, Constitution is looking at four to five staging grounds for its construction crews, one of which would be at the old Sabata farm off Route 7 and Beard's Hollow Road in Richmondville.
The 14-acre site is owned by Lancaster Development; Harold Loder, Town of Richmondville Planning Board chairman, said it's a permitted use and not one that worries him.
"As long as it's not used for hazardous materials, we don't have any real concerns," he said. "They need someplace close to I-88. We'll just watch it."
Mr. Loder said the site would be used to store pipes and other materials; National Grid has stored poles there in the past, he said. It's also used for farming.
Bob Nied of The Center for Sustainable Rural Communities, a grassroots local government watchdog, blasted Lancaster Development President Mark Galasso for supporting the controversial pipeline, "a project that would be of considerable interest to him and his company," by leasing land for the staging area.
"And it's not where I'd like to see something like this-near the high school. Will there be blasting materials there? It's dangerous and kind of frightening...
Mr. Nied also pointed to the fact that the Town of Richmondville unanimously passed a resolution opposing the pipeline and said Mr. Galasso's willingness to lease the land to Constitution "certainly disqualifies him as a good neighbor, especially since he's Cobleskill's mayor.
Mr. Galasso refuted Mr. Nied's charge that the staging area would raise safety concerns, pointing to the fact that his company's been across Route 7 for 14 years without a single incident.
The location-off a state highway and between two interstate exits-would also keep Constitution's traffic off local roads and out of residential neighborhoods, he said.
"Bob Nied is against every kind of energy-green or not," he added. "He attacks me personally to win his arguments.
"Does Constitution have any plans in the Village of Cobleskill? No. And this has nothing to do with my being mayor. I have an opportunity to rent my property so I can pay my taxes. If he's willing to pay my taxes, I'd be more than willing to let him."
Copies of the application are available online at the Constitution website, constitutionpipeline.com, and at the Cobleskill and Schoharie libraries.