by Thaddeus Flint
“The NED is dead.”
That was the word last week from Stop NY Fracked Gas Pipeline (SNYFGP) co-founders Robert Connors and Becky Meier after Kinder Morgan announced that the Northeast Direct Pipeline had been “suspended.”
[private]“The apparent demise of the unneeded and unsafe Northeast Energy Pipeline Project is another nail in the coffin for fossil fuel consumption. We are witnessing the end of the energy stranglehold by the fossil fuel industry and experiencing the beginning of a safer, saner energy future,” wrote Connors and Meier.
Kinder Morgan cited a lack of energy contracts with gas distribution companies as one of the key reasons for the suspension of the project that would have built a high pressure gas pipeline through Stephentown and other Rensselaer County towns. The energy giant however has not ruled out further projects and said it is committed to providing “natural gas infrastructure in the region.”
“While the initial notice of a suspension seemed, and continues to seem, like great news, Kinder Morgan’s failure to withdraw its application before FERC and the ambiguity of its announcement make us cautious,” says SNYFGP organizer Sandra Nathan of Stephentown. “Does this mean that the project will happen in a reconfigured form? If so, what is that form? Kinder Morgan’s words may indicate an intention or desire to salvage some part of the NED. We don’t yet know.”
Nathan’s concern is that the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2016 could in the future limit “state and local controls that can impede pipeline development and applies eminent domain for ‘economic development.’”
“Kinder Morgan’s sole bottom line is profit,” said Stephentown Councilman Gerry Robinson. “To that end if the market and economic risks in the calculus of their suspension decision should significantly change or diminish there is always the possibility that they would reconsider.”
Robinson added that “the one factor that won’t change is the tremendous fight and participation that we citizens waged and will again if necessary.”
That fight began just two months shy of two years ago in a little church in Canaan when Meier and Connors organized the first meeting of what would become SNYFGP. At that time the project was slated to go through parts of Columbia County including Canaan and New Lebanon.
“It’s just a beginning, but we have to start somewhere,” said Meir in June 2014.
And somewhere it went, as residents from all over the area joined together to organize against what they saw as a threat to their towns, their homes, and their lives.
“Kinder Morgan has been called up to defend against a real democratic uprising,” says Nathan. And that defense proved to be expensive. “For public relations/media, litigation, lobbying, and compliance with laws such as those to protect drinking water and infrastructure,” said Nathan. “And these are just some of the costs that the opposition has generated. So, yes, we definitely can take credit!”
“It was correspondingly realized that the longer we could delay and prolong the start of the project the more expensive it would become for Kinder Morgan,” says Robinson.
“Delay” might one day be the key word though. Energy prices will most certainly begin their climb again. NED could return. And at the same time, said Connors and Meier “it’s important to remember that although this project has been suspended, there are many other pipeline projects that are still continuing in New York State and beyond.”
“Other monsters are not far away,” agrees Nathan. “But after this experience with the NED, I would say that we the people are powerful and can – admittedly with a lot of work – defeat powerful interests like the fossil fuel industry.”[/private]