The Williams Transco Regional Energy Access Expansion Project (REAE) threatens to undermine climate action progress and add to the burden on environmental justice communities.
REAE involves the construction of and modifications to miles of pipelines and compressor stations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It would increase capacity for piping fracked gas from northeastern Pennsylvania to multiple points south in that state and New Jersey. Compressor stations that would be modified or expanded in New Jersey are in Somerset County and Mercer County.
In West Deptford, NJ, close to the Gibbstown site proposed for a massive liquid natural gas export facility, REAE would involve the construction of an entirely new compressor station.
At a recent hearing of the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, the NJ Chapter of the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations called upon Gov. Phil Murphy and state officials to reject a slew of air quality permits that would enable the REAE project to move forward.
According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the REAE project would involve the construction and operation of 22.2 miles of 30-inch-diameter lateral pipeline and 13.8 miles of 42-inch-diameter loop pipeline in Pennsylvania.
FERC, in its poorly detailed environmental impact statement released July 29, 2022, states that REAE construction impacts “may be predominantly borne by environmental justice communities” and that effects of these impacts “would be reduced to less-than-significant levels, except for climate change impacts.”
At a time when communities are already gasping for clean air and the effects of climate change are profoundly altering living conditions across the planet, this project is foolish at best and needs to be stopped.