Millennium holds outreach meeting; protesters turn out in force

Posted 9/30/09

As part of the permitting process to construct a compressor station near Eldred, Millennium Pipeline Company, LLC held a community outreach meeting at the Sullivan in Rock Hill on March 31.

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Millennium holds outreach meeting; protesters turn out in force

Posted

As part of the permitting process to construct a compressor station near Eldred, Millennium Pipeline Company, LLC held a community outreach meeting at the Sullivan in Rock Hill on March 31.

Before the meeting officially started, many protesters gathered across the street from the motel to speak out against the project. Members of Sullivan Area Citizens for Responsible Energy Development (SACRED), Sullivan County Residents Against Millenium (SCRAM), Delaware Riverkeeper Network (DRN) and various families and supporters held up signs and handed out literature asking various questions they believe Millennium has not answered.

Maya van Rossum, who as Delaware Riverkeeper leads the DRN, accused Millennium of disseminating false information about the compressor station, and the larger Eastern System Upgrade Project, which will include the Eldred compressor in Town of Highland, a second compressor at Hancock and a new 7.8 mile section of pipeline loop in Orange County.

Millennium has already constructed two compressor stations in the region and The River Reporter reported extensively on various health complaints and property value complaints residents registered because of those projects.

Asked if there was any realistic possibility that residents could prevent the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) from issuing the necessary approvals for the project to move forward, van Rossum said there may be more to the project than Millennium is letting on.

She said the existing compressor stations in Hancock and Minisink are about 40 miles apart and now they want to construct a second station in Hancock and a new one in the middle of the other two in Eldred. “So you’re going to now have a series of four compressor stations all within 40 miles. Seems to me we’re talking about a bigger project [than the one Millennium has described], and if that’s the case then I think we’ve got a real hook for a challenge.”

Asked if she thought this project actually had something to do with the exportation of gas overseas as liquid natural gas (LNG) she said, “All these pipelines these days involve export because that’s where the pipelines make their money. They know it, we know it, but it does not serve them well in the application process to admit it, so they tend to misrepresent during the application process and as soon as they get their approval they flip.”

Inside the Sullivan at the formal meeting, there were representatives of Millennium and FERC at various stations situated around a large hall. There was not a formal central presentation but attendees were free to ask questions at the various stations.

Millennium representatives denied that the project was related to eventual sales of LNG product oversees but instead said the expansion is needed because of increased demand. Millennium has applied to build a pipeline to the proposed CPV Valley Energy Center 650 megawatt power plant under construction in Orange County, which will add a large amount of demand.

The representatives also said the Millennium Pipeline joins up with the Algonquin Pipeline and through that connection satisfies increasing demand in and around New York City and Long Island.

According to information on the FERC website, there are at least a couple of approved or proposed export LNG facilities on the East Coast that could accept natural gas that had at one point traveled through the Millennium Pipeline.

One of the many people talking to the Millennium representatives was the chair of the Sullivan County Legislature Luis Alvarez. Asked if he had made a decision about whether the proposed compressor station in the Town of Highland would be positive or negative, he said he was still gathering information.

Alvarez also said that the pipeline travels through the back yard of his son who lives in the Town of Lumberland.

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