Williams Compressor in Local Crosshairs
The natural gas industry paints itself as an environmental savior. Burning natural gas is cleaner than burning other fossil fuels, which in…
The natural gas industry paints itself as an environmental savior. Burning natural gas is cleaner than burning other fossil fuels, which in theory should make it a cleaner alternative than coal and petroleum. But there’s a catch: capturing and transporting natural gas is incredibly intrusive, and the extraction process has been linked to earthquake like events, tainted wells, and — as can be seen in the documentary Gasland — flammable tap water.
But the industry continues to press ahead. In New Jersey, several projects are on the table — including a compressor station proposed for an undeveloped parcel about three miles from my house.
Williams, as part of its Northeast Supply Enhancement project, wants to build a 32,000 horsepower compressor station — Compressor 206 — on a 52-acre tract off Route 27 just outside Princeton. William, on its website, describes compressor stations as “the ‘engine’ that powers a pipeline.” It says it chose the site “because it minimizes potential impacts to residential areas as well as to environmental resources, such as wetlands and waterbodies” and that the “facility is being designed to be situated with the majority of acreage left as a wooded buffer surrounding the station.”
Williams paints a pretty picture — which is to be expected. In nearly 30 years of covering planning and zoning boards and listening to pitches from developers, not one had with the pitfalls of their projects.
Residents in the vicinity of the compressor are not standing idly by as the application moves forward. They already have support from U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Neighbors of the proposed compressor, who sent a letter to he Federal Energy Regulatory Commission calling the project “poorly planned” and potentially hazardous to the health of area residents.
“Williams,” she wrote in the letter (according to a story in NJ.com), “has not done enough to ensure the community that these grievances are taken seriously nor done their due diligence to address the uncertainty of health and safety impacts in the surrounding communities.”
Residents point out — accurately — that the proposed site “is surrounded by schools, places of worship and 800+ residential houses.”
This proposed compressor station will create air, noise, and odor problems that will affect residents in these townships. Compressors pose a serious health risk, especially when in such close proximity to a dense residential area. There’s also a history of catastrophic accidents at similar Compressors that could devastate our houses and put residents at serious risk.
Residential concerns might seem to be a prime example of the NIMBY phenomenon — the tendency of people to fight projects when they threaten their homes. It is true that many battles are fought along local lines, but only because we live our lives locally. We fight the compressor station and the cell tower being proposed for our neighborhoods because we want to protect our immediate way of life. There are limits to this approach, of course, as when the effort is to push something necessary but unpleasant to another neighborhood — the build-it-but-not-here argument. That doesn’t appear to be what we’re looking at here.
Critics of the compressor — and the other expansions being proposed — have rightly pointed out that there already is enough capacity and that the predictions of rolling blackouts and price hikes offered by the industry are nothing but scare tactics designed to bully local and state governments.
As I said, natural gas is cleaner to burn than coal or petroleum — but it is just as intrusive and only nominally better when all environmental impacts are factored in. As the Union of Concerned Scientists says, “Emissions from smokestacks and tailpipes, however, do not tell the full story.” Methane leakage remains a serious issue, as does polluted ground water and the destabilization of land masses.
The compressor being proposed is not just a bad fit for the proposed location, but the entire Williams plan and the larger effort to expand natural gas use demands a much broader fight. It’s time for local efforts to link up, for them not only to attack individual projects but the gas regime as a whole.
We need clean power.
In the meantime, there will be a public hearing on the project on May 2, 4:30–6 p.m. at the Franklin Township Community Center, 505 Demott Lane, Franklin, NJ.