Photo courtesy of Taylor McFarland
In a win for open space, climate change, and grassroots organizing, the PennEast pipeline has been defeated. This 118-mile pipeline would have been a disaster for both New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Preserved farmland, 98 acres of wetlands, 44 miles of forest, and 88 waterways, would have been decimated. This is a huge victory for not only our environment, but for the people who have been fighting this project since Day One. The Sierra Club’s New Jersey chapter, along with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, joined forces to make sure the pipeline would never be built. We knew it was a pressing issue when hundreds of people would consistently come to our meetings with questions on how to fight the PennEast Pipeline. Our campaign against the pipeline involved almost seven years of holding dozens of informational meetings, press conferences, rallies, sending thousands of letters and emails to our government officials, and more.
These major victories don’t happen very often, so when they finally do, it’s important to take it in. However, when working to protect the environment, you can never be satisfied. You must always be vigilant and continue fighting for our air, our water, our open space, and our climate.
Landowners in New Jersey would not let PennEast on their property to conduct surveys and generate data for their state permit applications. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection rejected PennEast Pipeline's application for water permits because they were deficient. That is why PennEast went to court, for eminent domain. New Jersey fought PennEast in court to prevent them from using eminent domain to take public land for their pipeline. Even though the state lost its Supreme Court case, PennEast still failed to build their pipeline. We thank Governor Phil Murphy’s administration and especially Attorney General Grubir Grewal for their continuous fight against the pipeline.
Even though we came out victorious, there is still a lot of work to do. For starters, New Jersey must strengthen the tools it already has to prevent new pipelines. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection can update its 401 Certificate permitting process to make it more difficult to build pipelines. Other states like New York, Connecticut, and North Carolina have already stopped pipelines using the 401 process. The Murphy administration can take a step further by ensuring that no new fossil fuel infrastructure of any kind is allowed to be built, because doing so would lock us into decades of more pollution.
Beating PennEast is monumental, and definitely one for the books. It just goes to show that with the immense power of grassroots organizing, public outcry, and just pure restlessness, we can win against the big guys. Our environment is too precious and too valuable to take for granted. It must be protected for not only us but for generations to come.