From The Jersey Sierran, July - September 2022
By Judy Minot, Chapter Secretary
Environmental groups scored a major win in March when the Sierra Club, Delaware PennFuture, and the Clean Air Council obtained a settlement halting construction of a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Wyalusing Township, Pa. The builder, Bradford County Real Estate Partners (BCREP), agreed to let its air-quality permit expire in July 2022 rather than seek an extension, which environmental groups opposed. It must obtain a new air-quality permit based on current standards should it wish to continue with the project.
The proposed facility is part of an interstate LNG export project that would take fracked gas from Pennsylvania and compress it into LNG at the Wyalusing plant. It would then be transported via truck or train to a proposed terminal in Gibbstown, NJ where it would be shipped to overseas markets.
This settlement has major implications for New Jersey. The Sierra Club has worked to stop this project since its inception, as it would involve the production of climate-warming natural gas by fracking and expose residents along the route to the risk of climate warming gas leaks and catastrophic explosions from derailments and highway accidents, while subjecting residents near the terminal to round-the-clock truck and train traffic. “The LNG would be shipped overseas, providing zero benefits to New Jersey and Pennsylvania,” said Sierra Club NJ Chapter Director Anjuli Ramos-Busot. “Building more dangerous fossil fuel infrastructure is not the solution to our climate and energy crises.”
If built, the Wyalusing plant alone would have had permission to emit more than a million tons of greenhouse gases every year, plus hundreds of tons of noxious air pollutants. The potential train or truck routes to Gibbstown pass through heavily populated and already environmentally overburdened communities, including Allentown, Pa., Philadelphia, and Camden.
The Wyalusing and Gibbstown facilities are part of a logistically and financially connected LNG export process contemplated by New Fortress Energy.
PennFuture and the Sierra Club have also objected to a filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that would bifurcate this scheme, thereby evading FERC oversight.
In challenging the air quality permit extension, the groups objected on the grounds that BCREP, a subsidiary of New Fortress Energy, had not commenced construction at the Wyalusing facility as required by law, making the Pa. Department of Environmental Protection’s (PADEP’s) extension unjustified. The groups also objected on grounds that a second extension would authorize the use of an outdated and inappropriate pollution control technology, that PADEP set air pollution limits too high, and that several other deficiencies, spelled out in the notice of appeal, existed.
The project has not been abandoned by New Fortress Energy, which told FERC that it plans to ship LNG to Gibbstown either from the proposed Wyalusing plant (presumably with a new permit) or from “third party liquefaction facilities.”