Couple of observations about the company Williams Partners subcontracted to do surveys for the proposed Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline--the subcontractors who thought it fine to trespass on folks land who didnt want the survey: lancasteronline/news/local/pipeline-company-apologizes-fires-survey-crew-for-trespassing-incidents/article_df7fb298-1e56-11e4-8b07-001a4bcf6878.html 1. WOW! And how many time have the Williams subcontractors conducted the survey via trespass and got away with it? 2. Shouldnt FERC now throw out ALL the surveys as suspect--and make Williams start entirely over? 3. Is the fact of this trespass not evidence that folks are saying NO to williams? After all, if landowners were saying yes, there would be no pressure to trespass, would there? 4. And Lastly, this is 100% on Williams--however, in their MLP-ness, they want to deny it. The subcontracted. Theyre responsible. This ALONE should make it clear to FERC that this company cannot be trusted to carry out any plan to build a 42 inch monster pipeline. If they cant EVEN be trusted to conduct the survey of properties with a shred of integrity, what on earth makes us think they wont lie about the welds? The steal casing? The noise? The right-of-way clearances? The who godamn thing? Heres my comments for FERC: COMMENTS FOR THE FERC SCOPING HEARINGS: TWO REASONS TO OPPOSE WILLIAMS PARTNERS’ ATLANTIC SUNRISE EXPANSION OF THE TRANSCO I have a simple and clear message for landowners who’ve been approached by a landman contracted by Williams Partners for the construction of the Atlantic Sunrise Expansion of the TRANSCO: If you have not allowed a survey, don’t. If you have allowed a survey, but have not signed a contract, don’t. If you catch a Williams agent trespassing on your property, call the police immediately. You have nothing to gain by allowing Williams on your property—and very much to lose. Indeed, even if FERC grants Williams a permit to construct the 177 mile, 30-42 inch high pressure natural gas pipeline, and with it the option to utilize eminent domain toward the theft your property, you have no more to lose than if you took a principled stand and fought. Photo Wendy Lynne Lee I say “theft” because there’s no good argument to be made that the Atlantic Sunrise constitutes a public utility. It does not. Williams’ objectives include power plants and distribution lines—and ultimately LNG export to the global markets from points such as the highly contested Dominion facility proposed for Cove Point, Maryland. A public utility is defined in terms of its performance of a vital public service that is expensive to produce and requires the maintenance of its infrastructure. While it may be publicly or privately owned, it is regulated for the performance of that service. Williams can make no such claim for the Atlantic Sunrise. Let me be very clear here: just because Williams can claim to have extensive investor commitments from shale gas producers does not imply that this pipeline is necessary to serve a public interest. Indeed, it is necessary only to the shale gas producers who need the pipeline to advance their own private profit ventures. So unless we are willing to redefine a public utility in terms of what serves the private interests of shale gas producers and their affiliated companies, Williams simply cannot defend this claim—particularly since many of these producers are themselves aimed at global export of LNG. Photo Wendy Lynne Lee We also have very little reason to have confidence in FERC with respect to the Notice of Intent to which we are invited to comment here. First, FERC has repeatedly refused to address the full cumulative impacts of expanding interstate transmission pipelines. Quoting from the Delaware River Keeper: “On June 6, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the FERC environmental review of Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s reconstruction project was impermissibly segmented and failed to adequately address the cumulative impacts of the project. The Court concluded that FERC thus violated federal law requirements governing environmental review.” But FERC has a history: August 4th, 2014, the EPA found FERC draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for the Corpus Christi Liquified Natural Gas facility, Sabine Pass, Louisianna equally remiss: “EPA’s review identified a number of potential adverse impacts to aquatic resources, air quality, environmental justice populations, and wetlands.” The failure is the same—inadequate evaluation of potential cumulative impacts. In other words, FERC acts precisely in the interest if the industry that funds it—the fossil fuel extraction industry. By failing to aggregate impacts, by segmenting the natural gas extraction, transport, and liquifaction processes, FERC relieves itself the responsibility of having to consider the full weight of the impacts on the ecologies, nonhuman animal, and human populations affected by that industry. It’s no wonder that FERC finds itself rubber-stamping permits once the minimum EIS requirements are met. Photo Wendy Lynne Lee But “minimum” does not mean adequate, and as restoration ecologist Kevin Heatley and I recent argued, FERC’s failure to aggregate impacts, conduct meaningful alternatives analyses, consider the full impacts of forest fragmentation, provide for adequate invasive species control, and FERC’s willingness sanction the industry’s claim to “temporary work space,” even when that work space drags on for years at great ecological and human cost is simply unacceptable. My message to landowners: You cannot trust an industry who is willing to take by theft what you will not forfeit to their efforts to manipulate, extort, and threaten you, your neighbor, tour community. You cannot trust elected representatives who do not bother to take a public stand in the defense of their county and/or township constituents. You cannot trust an agency—FERC—who is funded by the industry it purports to regulate—but demonstrably does not, who will grant the right of eminent domain to what is not a public utility, and whose consistent failure to consider the aggregate impacts consequent upon all fossil fuel extraction contributes to accelerating climate instability. June, 2013, Fire Williams Compressor, Branchburg, NJ, 13 injured, two killed. Don’t be fooled. This is a dog and pony show and it deserves to be treated as such. With derision. And with resistance. Wendy Lynne Lee, Professor Department of Philosophy Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania thewrenchphilosleft.blogspot/2014/08/pipeline-schmoozers-micro-brewskis-and.html
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 23:38:37 +0000