How To Fight a Pipeline

It’s a spe­cial orga­niz­ing chal­lenge to fight pipelines, as we’re fight­ing a line, not a point, on the map. Com­pa­nies and agen­cies won’t release data list­ing all impact­ed landown­ers. In Penn­syl­va­nia, we have enhanced our out­reach by using GIS to over­lay com­pa­ny pipeline maps with 911 emer­gency address­es obtained from each coun­ty, allow­ing us to iden­ti­fy impact­ed landowners.

 

Along the Atlantic Sun­rise Pipeline in north­east Penn­syl­va­nia, we used this infor­ma­tion to mass-mail and go door-to-door to over 200 landown­ers in three coun­ties to inform them of their rights and build a landown­er coali­tion that meets quarterly.

 

Our goal for landown­er orga­niz­ing is to have them each deny sur­vey per­mis­sion to the com­pa­ny (Williams Part­ners LLC) so that per­mit fil­ing can’t be com­plet­ed. Then, we intend to sup­port landown­ers through emi­nent domain pro­ceed­ings by pro­vid­ing refer­rals to vet­ted attor­neys and appraisers.

 

Media strat­e­gy is just as impor­tant and we have had a num­ber of human inter­est sto­ries pub­lished in local and nation­al news about com­pelling cas­es where landown­ers are stand­ing up against Williams and oth­er companies.

 

In Pike and Northamp­ton Coun­ties, we appealed the PA Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion’s air per­mits for twin com­pres­sor sta­tions meant to pres­sur­ize the Colum­bia Pipeline 1278 line that trans­ports gas to the pro­posed Cove Point LNG export ter­mi­nal. Both com­pres­sors emit the equiv­a­lent of a fleet of idling diesel school bus­es, mak­ing the local air qual­i­ty espe­cial­ly dan­ger­ous for chil­dren’s devel­op­ing lungs.

 

Dur­ing the com­pres­sor appeals, Colum­bia Pipeline motioned to dis­miss our case and Gov­er­nor Tom Wolf’s attor­neys agreed. How­ev­er, the judge dis­missed their motion and is allow­ing us to pro­ceed with our argu­ments regard­ing best avail­able con­trol tech­nolo­gies, health impacts, local zon­ing approval, and oth­er impor­tant considerations.

 

Most urgent­ly, we’re lead­ing the cut­ting edge bat­tle against the 124-mile Con­sti­tu­tion Pipeline, a project of Williams and Cabot Oil & Gas, which is pro­posed to car­ry fracked gas from Susque­han­na Coun­ty, PA to Albany, NY and beyond.

 

On Jan­u­ary 29, the Fed­er­al Ener­gy Reg­u­la­to­ry Com­mis­sion per­mit­ted tree cut­ting to begin in Penn­syl­va­nia that must be fin­ished by March 31 to com­ply with the Migra­to­ry Bird Treaty Act and Endan­gered Species Act as enforced by the US Fish & Wildlife Service.

 

We have landown­ers across Susque­han­na Coun­ty who have giv­en our vol­un­teers and staff per­mis­sion to mon­i­tor the pipeline clear­ing for vio­la­tions. On one prop­er­ty, where a sug­ar maple farm is pro­duc­ing syrup this sea­son, we have set up a pick­et line where we’ve turned away tree crews for 16 days straight.

 

The pick­et at North Har­ford Maple has drawn both the atten­tion of nation­al media orga­ni­za­tions like NPR and the Asso­ci­at­ed Press and legal action in fed­er­al court by the com­pa­ny. We’re pledg­ing to stick to it for the long haul so stay tuned for more updates!