For Immediate Release
Contact: Taylor McFarland, NJ Sierra Club: 7328651405
The Sierra Club has intervened on Williams new expansion project called the Regional Energy Access Expansion. This project would include multiple existing facilities and two new pipeline facilities, a 21.98 mile lateral pipe in Luzerne County, PA and 13.78 mile pipe loop in Monroe County, PA. Williams plans to build a new 11,107 hp Compressor Station 201 in Gloucester County and expand its existing compressor station in Somerset County.
"Here we go again! Another unnecessary pipeline being plunged through the hearts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We don't need another expansion project nor the environmental damage from fracking, gas leaks and methane emissions. Let's invest in clean, renewable energy and leave the gas in the ground,” said Gary Frederick, Conservation Chair of the Raritan Valley Sierra Club group.
Sierra Club is opposed to the project because it will exacerbate climate change and impact the safety, health, and well-being of communities and the environment in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The Biden Administration has made a commitment to reduce our country’s greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions to fifty percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Approving this pipeline would go directly against this commitment by forcing a dirty fuel source onto the affected communities for several decades, thus preventing these communities from lowering their GHG emissions.
“This dirty, dangerous fracked gas project unnecessarily threatens the health of Pennsylvania's water, people, climate, and communities. At a time when clean, renewable energy sources are affordable and abundant, it makes no sense to lock ourselves into decades of dependence on the dirty fuels of the past. While this polluting project never should have been proposed in the first place, it is imperative that FERC rejects it,” said Kelsey Krepps, Senior Campaign Representative, Beyond Dirty Fuels, Sierra Club.
According to Williams, the Regional Energy Access Expansion project is projected to be completed by the 2023-2024 winter heating season. Aside from building two new pipeline facilities, it will add compression or modify three Compressor Stations and build one New Compressor Station in Gloucester City, NJ. They also plan to modify 15 existing facilities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and increase flow to 6 Meter & Regulating Stations.
“William’s unneeded fossil fuel project will threaten our public health and environment. The pipeline will cut an ugly scar through critical streams, open space and farmland. It will increase more greenhouse gases and add to climate change. FERC must consider the disastrous impacts that the REAE project will have and reject it,” said Taylor McFarland, Chapter Coordinator for the NJ Sierra Club.