The Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company is looking at a "greenfield" path very near to that of the proposed Constitution Pipeline as a way to deliver natural gas from Pennsylvania to Wright and then on to eastern Massachusetts.
Tennessee Gas and parent company Kinder Morgan went public with plans for pipeline from the Wright compressor station to Dracut, Massachusetts in February.
What's being called the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Northeast Energy Direct Project would combine that leg-50 miles of pipeline co-located with Tennessee Gas' existing system and 129 miles of additional Greenfield pipeline in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire--with 117 miles of pipeline from Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania to Wright.
The project isn't expected to enter the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission pre-application stage until September, but it's already drawing criticism from Constitution opponents.
Maps show the proposed pipeline running near, but not co-located with the proposed Constitution Pipeline, and "through previously uncrossed forest, wetlands, farmlands and streams"-greenfield-according to Bob Nied of the Center for Sustainable Rural Communities.
"On the surface, it looks like another high-impact, large-volume, high-pressure pipe through the region, plus two new compressor stations, including one somewhere in Schoharie County," Mr. Nied said.
In a May 21 letter to the Town of Richmondville, Tennessee Gas sited the "increasing demand for natural gas and related transmission services in the Northeast" as the reason behind its proposed expansion, and said it will begin contacting landowners along the proposed route in the coming weeks.
The project timetable shows a proposed construction start date of January 2017 with the line in service by November 2018, in time for the 2018-19 winter heating season.
A Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Constitution Pipeline was issued in February; a Final EIS, expected June 13, is expected to be delayed "a month or two," said Constitution spokesman Chris Stockton, adding, "We do not anticipate this...will affect our target in-service date of late 2015 to 2016."