Buckingham moves forward on pipeline agreement; Residents’ pleas for postponement ignored

Posted 8/21/12

STARLIGHT, PA — As numerous residents were asking for a postponement of the vote and offering critical comments on the project before the board, supervisors chairman Kurt Mueller figured he had …

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Buckingham moves forward on pipeline agreement; Residents’ pleas for postponement ignored

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STARLIGHT, PA — As numerous residents were asking for a postponement of the vote and offering critical comments on the project before the board, supervisors chairman Kurt Mueller figured he had heard enough and called for a vote. It was unanimously passed by the board. The exact nature of what the board had just agreed to, however, was the subject of dispute.

A company called Linden Energy Services (LES) wants to build a pipeline, or perhaps two, that would run through Buckingham Township and neighboring Preston Township in Wayne County. The two townships own an old railroad easement, which could provide a path for the pipeline. If the townships agree to grant an easement to LES for a pipeline to LES, the company could save a lot of time and money because for that portion of the line, LES would not be forced to negotiate with individual landowners for easements.

Mueller insisted that the only thing the board was agreeing to with the vote was a four-year option that would allow LES to undertake a feasibility study of constructing such a line. However, the 19-page document outlining the terms of the agreement, with attachments totaling another 20 pages, lays out details specifying the parameters of a permanent easement should it come to pass.

The document said the 75-foot easement would be “perpetual and exclusive.” The document also details that LES will pay the townships $1 per linear foot for the option or $31,680. It says the price to be paid for the easement will be “$1.76 per linear foot of the Pipeline(s) per calendar year,” so if the easement is five miles long, the yearly payment to the township would be $26,400. The details of the agreement did not sit well with the public.

Resident Steve Schwartz took exception to the fact that the agreement said the easement would be forever. He said “We don’t know who is going to be living here forever; we hope we will be here forever and our descendents will be here forever, but we don’t know. We don’t know what the industry will be like forever.” He said other easement agreements, such as the one in Hancock for the Millennium Pipeline, have a time limit. He said that one is 20 years.

Schwartz also said he talked to the general counsel of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), who said the project would need a permit from FERC, and by moving forward the supervisors were, “inviting the federal government into your township forever.”

Resident Brian Dalrymple said that the agreement was lopsided in favor of LES. He said, “They can do whatever they want how they want; we can’t sell it, rent it, do anything with it unless we have permission from LES.”

Resident Joann Morsch read portions of a letter to the board sent by Maya K. van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, who called the agreement unnecessary. Morsch read, “At this point, the offer is too lopsided for the company and too vague for Buckingham and its residents to truly understand what they are signing up for. This option can be sold to any entity foreign or domestic forever. There are no restrictions on the diameter of the pipe….”

Morsch also repeated concerns of others when she talked about safety and the environment. She noted that there was a pipeline explosion in Salem Township on April 29 in which a man was burned.

Wes Gillingham of Catskill Mountainkeeper compared the agreement to a $25 per acre gas lease that unwitting landowners may have signed years ago before learning about the actual value of gas leases; several residents said the township was not getting enough money in return for the easement. Gillingham also said the agreement as written opens the township to become the site for multiple compressor stations, because “every time they add size to a pipeline, they need to add pressure.”

It has been reported in various news outlets that a compressor station will be part of the pipeline project, which would seek to connect the Tennessee Pipeline in Pennsylvania to the Millennium Pipeline in New York, and would cross the West Branch of the Delaware River.

The project will only go forward if neighboring Preston Township approves a similar agreement for an option and easement in that township. A meeting to address the issue had been scheduled for May 2, but that was postponed. Now a meeting is scheduled for May 5, at 6:30 p.m. at the municipal building in Lakewood.

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