200 People Request Public Hearing and Meeting on Easton Compressor Station

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will hold a meeting and hearing with DEP staff as well as employees of Columbia Gas at 5 PM on Monday, November 10th at the Easton Area Middle School. Over 200 people requested a public meeting and hearing for the proposed Columbia Gas Compressor Station in Forks Township, PA. The meeting will provide members of the public an opportunity to ask questions of both the DEP and Columbia Gas. The meeting will be followed by a hearing beginning at 6 PM for people to put comments and concerns on the official record.

“This pipeline is a high-pressure 20-inch transmission pipeline that would transport millions of cubic feet of gas per day from the shale fields to national and international markets from the Delaware and Chesapeake Bay ports. This gas is not destined for our communities but the adjacent neighborhood is going to have the daily impacts of noise and air pollution,” said Sheila Gallagher, who lives along North Delaware Drive, and buys her milk, cheese and eggs from the Klein Dairy next to the older existing 1971 station.

Columbia Gas is a subsidiary of NiSource, a fortune 500 company that was criticized in 2010 for not paying taxes despite making billions of dollars in revenue. This compressor station proposal is part of the larger East Side Expansion pipeline project, an interstate pipeline expansion that is before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for approval.

If completed, the East Side Expansion would result in two new compressor stations and close to twenty miles of new transmission pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. NiSource and Columbia Gas are proposing to remove the existing compressors in Forks Township with a current capacity of 2,250 horsepower, and replace them with two new compressors with a capacity of 19,500 horsepower, close to 9 times the size.

However the proposed air emissions from the Easton facility are of particular concern to public health.

Compressor stations in Pennsylvania are increasingly notorious for accidents, fires, and even explosions. In 2012, the Lathrop compressor station in Susquehanna County exploded, shaking homes a half mile away. During Hurricane Sandy, the Bernville Compressor Station in Berks County released 174 million cubic feet of gas, including 61 tons of volatile organic compounds due to a “human error.” In March of last year, a fire at a Bradford County compressor station injured one person.