Gas Pipeline Expansion Concerns Local Officials

Bloomfield officials joined their Nutley counterparts on Wednesday to express concern for plans for a gas pipeline running through the two towns.

Pipeline owner Transco has proposed expanding the capacity of an underground gas pipeline that runs near Bloomfield along the west corridor of Nutley. Officials are concerned that increased pressure on the 50-year-old pipeline presents a safety issue for residents.

The pipe is underneath high-tension power lines and within 50 feet of residential property.

The pipeline has been tested by Transco and deemed adequate for expansion under Federal guidelines. Nonetheless, officials and residents believe the risks presented by the pipeline outweigh the benefits of the expansion done.

“They’re using an aged pipeline and increasing the amount of pressure to move gas,” Bloomfield Councilman Nick Joanow said. “The point of concern is that the additional pressure may be—and I say may because we are looking for more information—where the pipe is underground, above it is power lines.”

Chris Stockton, a spokesperson for Phillips, the company that runs the Transco pipeline, emphasized that the project was designed and executed with environmental standards in mind. In reference to concerns about using the existing pipeline, Stockton said the company was trying to minimize the footprint of the pipeline.

He also stressed that even with the increased pressure going through the pipe, it would still be under the pressure capacity for the pipe and posed no threat to people living near it.

“We just finished yesterday a series of tests to confirm that a series of tests,” Stockton said in a phone interview on May 30. We filled it with water and pressure tested it at one and a half times the normal operating pressure.”

In an editorial in Bloomfield Life, Bloomfield resident Jane Califf wrote that she believes Transco and the Federal Energy Regulation Commission have not shown the results to the township despite a number of requests.

“I think that Transco cannot be trusted to do a safe job because they won’t even give the results of their tests,” Califf told Patch.

The gas moving through the pipes is extracted by a process called hydraulic fracturing or fracking, a controversial technique that involves pumping millions of gallons of water laced with chemicals a mile or more underground to blast shale rock and release the gas.

“The gas going through these pipes are full of toxic chemicals because of the fracking process,” Califf said. Among her worries about toxicity is the potential for the cancer-causing gas radon to be present in the pipes.

Last year, Nutley Councilman passed a resolution of concern asking for Transco to provide their township’s residents and ours information on the pipeline.

The Bloomfield has been circling a resolution expressing concern and requesting information about the pipeline in meetings in May and June. They passed the resolution on Wednesday, June 5. 

“This certainly is a matter of concern,” Joanow told his fellow officials at the May 29 Bloomfield Council meeting. “We need as a township to say that whatever is happening will be safely done and monitored.”