Millennium Changes Rte 81 Pipeline Plans twice in 2 days

Cortland Standard coverage of Rte 81 Pipeline Plan Changes 12/18/13

Plan to connect Millennium pipeline to Dominion pipeline in Cortlandville.

Statement of Joseph Heath, Esq. on Millennium’s tactics: Message from Joe Heath 12-20-13

MILLENNIUM PIPELINE COMPANY PROVES WE CAN’T TRUST
ANYTHING THEY SAY:
On Monday, December 16th, a senior Millennium vice president
e-mailed me and said “Unfortunately, the markets (sic) participation
did not materialize in a sufficient quantity to justify pursuit of the
project at this time.”
However, by Wednesday, December 18th, the Millennium media
spokesman changed that position and told the newspapers “Based
on that initial response there was not sufficient demand to move
forward with the development all the way to Syracuse, so we are still
evaluating the southern part of that line.”
Their plan now appears to be consideration of constructing of a
large, high pressure pipeline from the Millennium east/west pipeline
in Broome County to connect with the Dominion pipeline in the middle
of Cortland County.
So, if we can’t trust their senior vp in charge of the project, how
can we trust their landmen when they come to our doors?
Rest assured that the Stop the I-81 Pipeline resistance group
will continue our work of educating landowners and our communities,
and that we will double down our efforts until everyone is protected.
Our research shows that building a 30 mile pipeline to connect
the Millennium to the Dominion makes no sense, because these
pipelines already cross near Horseheads, in Chemung County. On
September 9, 2013, the pro-fracking Marcellus Drilling News, ran an
article which stated:
The story of the northeast: Too much Marcellus
Shale natural gas, not enough pipelines to move it all
to market. More pipelines are on the way like the
Constitution, but in the meantime, how to move the
enormous amount of gas already flowing? 1
On Friday, the Millennium Pipeline, a major
transmission pipeline that transverses New York
State . . . announced a binding open season through
September 13 on a proposal to ship more Marcellus
gas by creating an interconnect between Dominion
Transmission’s pipeline and the Millennium at or near
Horseheads, NY.
We will need to continue to research how a corporation can
attempt to justify to FERC, or its shareholders, the much more costly
and disruptive 30 mile pipeline, rather than the interconnect in
Horseheads where the two lines already cross.
Unfortunately, the residents and landowners of our
communities cannot get reliable information from this corporation,
and so, we will continue our work, and our research which we will
share with our neighbors.
Landowners will never stop defending their property against
eminent domain by private corporations that seek to build
dangerous, redundant and unnecessary fracked gas infrastructure
across the landscape, bringing ruin to farms, destroying property
values, menacing air quality and drinking water. Millennium should
expect and will receive stiff, well-organized and well-researched
citizen resistance at every step.
Unfractured,
Joe Heath
December 20, 2013
1 Here, the industry is openly admitting what we have known and said repeatedly: these
pipelines are only about moving fracked gas to increase corporate profits.
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