Extended gas hub lines to be added in Hughesville area
HUGHESVILLE – It is by no means a surprise that with all of the natural gas being extracted from nearby landowners that there should be a need to transport the excessive amount through the pipelines. Williams, who delivers about 12 percent of the nation’s natural gas, has met with 20 affected landowners to construct a fourth pipeline across Wolf Township and Muncy Creek Townships.
A public meeting was held last month to introduce the proposed TRANSCO line which is a subsidiary owned by Williams Gas Pipeline headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The proposed pipeline project will run next to existing pipelines already established according to Chris Stockton, Communications specialist for Williams. The expansion project is expected to run 2.62 miles and will bolt onto a previous project that runs parallel across Penn and Wolf Townships. This will be known as the Leidy Storage Field Loop leading to the storage field station #535 in Luzerne County.
Maggie Suter, an environmental engineer with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said that the request came due to the increased demand to move the gas. “Our government agency held a formal hearing and the project will be regulated through our office.” The request was made with the agency on Feb. 17, 2011.
“We do not own the gas, we are just the distributors,” said Stockton who is working on the project through their Houston, Texas office location.
Currently the project is in its early planning stages. Landowners are still speculating its passage and placement. “We can’t stop it, but let’s keep it from doing the least amount of damage,” said local landowner, Harry Rogers who also expressed concerns about removing the timber and placing the lines on the north side vs. the south side.
Once the project is underway and the planning process is completed, bids will go out to contractors to align the work. Hopefully, some of these contractors will be local. “There have been no applications completed yet, as this is an identifying process,” said Suter. The filing will be completed in November 2011.
Although most of the infrastructure is already in place from previous pipelines, temporary work spaces and access roads will still need to be established. Also the National Environmental Policy Act will need to hold public meetings so local citizens can voice concerns and/or support for the project as well as identifying other related issues.
“We will be working with the local townships and municipalities. We started meeting with them a year ago,” Stockton said.