Morgan Caplan, Sierra Club, morgan.caplan@sierraclub.org
WYALUSING, PA - The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) today denied an extension for a critical permit that would authorize transportation of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) between Wyalusing, Pennsylvania and Gibbstown, New Jersey. The Special Permit was originally granted in December 2019 and expired in 2021. Sierra Club, Clean Air Council, and Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future filed comments urging the denial of New Fortress Energy's 2021 application to renew the expired Special Permit.
The Wyalusing and Gibbstown facilities are part of a unified LNG export scheme that would take fracked gas from Pennsylvania, compress it into LNG, then transport it by truck or train across communities in Pennsylvania to be loaded onto ships at a terminal in Gibbstown, New Jersey, before being shipped to overseas markets. If built, the Wyalusing plant would be allowed to emit more than a million tons of climate-polluting greenhouse gases every year, as well as hundreds of tons of noxious air pollutants that would impact the local community.
Transporting LNG by rail is highly hazardous because a single accident could result in flammable leaks, choking vapor clouds, explosions, and uncontrollable fires. Unfortunately, the dangers of transporting hazardous materials by rail were on full display when a Norfolk Southern Railway train carrying millions of pounds of vinyl chloride – a potent carcinogen – derailed near the community in East Palestine, Ohio, upending thousands of people’s lives and putting their health and safety at risk.
In response, Anjuli Ramos-Busot, Director, Sierra Club NJ Chapter, issued the following statement:
“This extension denial is just another strike against a risky proposal that serves no other purpose than to expand gas extraction in the region to export overseas and leave our communities to bear the risks. Denying this extension casts doubt on the entire New Fortress Energy LNG export project’s future, from the plant in Wyalusing to its reckless and dangerous scheme to move explosive LNG by rail and truck through our communities to the ill-conceived and unwanted Gibbstown LNG export dock terminal in New Jersey. PHMSA took a step in the right direction today, and now we ask President Biden to take the next step – to finalize the LNG-by-rail rules that would halt the transportation of dangerous LNG that would put thousands of people at risk and produce additional air pollution impacting already overburdened communities.
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.