February 10, 2016 — Not in my backyard, under my street, through my woods, near my dream house or, for that matter, around my chubsuckers.
Thousands of New Jerseyans want nothing to do with proposals to build or expand roughly 15 natural-gas pipelines. No matter that utilities say the projects are necessary in a part of the U.S. where 45 percent of electricity comes from natural-gas combustion. No matter the promises of better reliability, four years after New Jersey’s costliest natural disaster left 1.4 million customers without power.
The companies, critics say, have an ally in Governor Chris Christie, a Republican running for president, with policy changes and swift reviews to counter conservation regulations and to prolong reliance on fossil fuels over renewable energy. At risk, in the most densely populated U.S. state, is a landscape where Revolutionary War soldiers pounded the British, and the red-bellied turtle and the creek chubsucker — that’s a fish — are treasured species.
“For me to get a fence permit — a fence permit! — I have to spend $1,500, four months, go to town hall and meet with an architect and an engineer,” said Naor Chazan, a 31-year-old marketing executive from Chesterfield. For utilities, though, “all kinds of magic happens in their favor.”
Developers are proposing new pipelines to take advantage of the price premium for Northeast gas over cheap Appalachian supplies. Prices at the Leidy hub in Ohio have tumbled 52 percent over four years amid surging supplies from the Marcellus shale formation, while gas at the Algonquin hub near Boston has gained 39 percent. Heating costs in New England and the Mid-Atlantic jump during the winter, when demand is highest, and pipeline bottlenecks limit deliveries from other regions.