Updated Information: Tuesday, 11:08 a.m.
Now that State College Borough Council has voted to deny a permit for the high-speed gas pipeline, what happens now? The resolution approved at last night’s council meeting calls for negotiations with Penn State and Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania. But it’s uncertain how those negotiations might proceed. Borough Manager Thomas Fountaine says, “we don’t know exactly how that would happen.”
Fountaine also raised the possibilty of a legal challenge, “We’re expecting a lawsuit to ask a court to require a permit to be issued.” StateCollege.com has contacted Penn State and Columbia Gas for comment and we hope to have that response later.
A proposed high-pressure gas line gets a thumbs down from State College Borough Council. Council members passed a resolution last night, opposing a permit that would allow Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania to build the controversial project. However, the pipeline could still be approved in the future.
Monday’s regular council meeting featured passionate outcries from pipeline opponents, and lasted well past midnight. Representatives from Penn State University and Columbia Gas argued the gas line is safe. They want to run the pipeline through State College as part of an effort to convert the university’s coal-burning West Power Plant to a natural gas plant.
It was a packed house, with several people in the crowd holding up anti-pipeline placards. Many State College residents on hand challenged the decision to run the pipeline through the borough claiming that “Penn State should assume its own risk and run the pipeline through its own land.”
Though it could theoretically be restricted to the University Park Campus, Dan Cote, Columbia Gas VP of Pipeline Safety and Compliance suggested that a campus-only route was never seriously considered, “We didn’t even do a cost estimate of putting a pipeline on campus after seeing the difficulties. We simply determined that they were not viable routes.”
That didn’t go over well with residents who felt that the University’s financial priorities were being placed over the safety of borough residents. “Penn State in particular is offloading a risk onto the community that I believe they should assume themselves,” said local resident Janet Engeman.
With so many pipeline opponents in the crowd, council member James Rossenberger asked the Colombia Gas representatives, “Given the PR cost—I’ll call it—of this project, do you think you will renegotiate the decision to not run the pipeline through the campus?” No reply was offered.
Mark Kempric, President of Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania, addressed the Borough Council insisting that there was no danger involved with the pipeline. “I get it. People have been reading a lot about natural gas in Pennsylvania. We are not going to jeopardize anyone’s safety. We have been providing gas to State College for 80 years—we aren’t going to ruin that relationship.”
According to Columbia Gas there are already 47 miles of underground natural gas pipelines in State College, nearly 6 miles of which are high-pressured systems like the proposed pipeline. That statistic did little to calm protestors who were quick to bring up the natural gas leak that shut down a section of Park Avenue over the weekend. Cote pointed out that the line that was leaking over the weekend was, “a first generation line, and it didn’t break. It corroded to the point that there were leaks.”
Several hours prior to the meeting Columbia Gas released an independent study by Alliance Engineering’s Jim Albitz, which confirmed that the proposed pipeline route was the best fit. The validity of the study was called into question by one resident who, after doing some internet sleuthing, determined that Jim Albitz was employed by Columbia Gas’ parent company NiSource as recently as two years ago. Citing an apparent conflict of interest, the resident— backed by a cheering room—asked that the study be ignored.
Several residents called into question Penn State’s newly promised “transparency.” Greg Miller sounded off to the council and called out the university during his address in the public forum, “The university has spent millions of dollars to promote transparency…Where is the transparency with this pipeline? They want to sink a time bomb in a residential neighborhood to save a few bucks. How low have you sunk, Penn State? There is absolutely no benefit to the residents—only added risk and damage.”
The public outcry to this gas pipeline follows a recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer that questions Penn State’s relationship with the gas, and particularly Marcellus Shale, industry. Several times residents asked why Penn State was upgrading to another nonrenewable fossil fuel rather than pursuing a greener energy solution.
Well after midnight the council voted unanimously to pass a resolution that denied Columbia Gas’ permit request for the proposed pipeline.
Click here to read the Philadelphia Inquirer report.
