GREENFIELD — Dozens of people who attended a state Department of Public Utilities hearing in a crowded Greenfield Middle School auditorium Wednesday night sounded off clearly their opposition to Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. petitions to grant access to more than 400 private properties around the state to conduct surveys for its proposed Northeast Energy Direct pipeline project.
An estimated 300 people attended the session, with about 75 registering to speak, and a second hearing room was set up in the library for those who couldn’t wait.
The night was punctuated with cheering and standing ovations by pipeline opponents, some of whom said allowing eminent proceedings would violate the U.S. Constitution’s 4th amendment prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause.
“In this case, eminent domain would be stealing from the people, and most of all from the future people,” Cynthia Lawton Singer of Conway told the four DPU commission and staff members, including commission Chair Angela O’Connor. “This pipeline is for private profit, with the lion’s share of gas to be exported. Where is the accountability for the state’s promise to those citizens of the past to protect in perpetuity? Where is the state’s accountability to present and future citizens who will pay the monetary costs through utility surcharges and the uncounted costs with their living standards degraded and saddled with antiquated, inappropriate and high liability energy infrastructure?”
In what was the second of six hearings being held around the state, residents of the eight affected Franklin County towns, along with others, decried having property rights overridden for the benefit of a Houston-based corporation’s project that would provide no benefit. Several of those who spoke questioned the authority and the timeliness of the DPU to be considering TGP’s petition.
Although people were advised to limit their comments strictly to the pipeline survey, many of those who spoke questioned the need for the project and rejected the company’s stated objective that it would ultimately reduce energy costs for the region.
Ashfield Planning Board member Jim Cutler said, “You are now, for the second time in a row, in a position to give (TGP parent) Kinder Morgan what they need in order to obtain a certificate to begin construction of the Northeast Energy Direct pipeline through my town, my property and through old-growth, six-foot-diameter trees, around one of which lie the ashes of my mother.
“The term for this is called aiding and abetting. … If you were to allow surveying on the properties that Kinder Morgan has submitted, then you will have opened the door to the construction of the NED pipeline and the destruction of property values, water quality, livelihoods and possibly the very lives of people who live in these areas, and in the process proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the DPU is a failed and captive regulatory agency.”
The company says the surveys are needed to support its application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the pipeline, which would cross 64 miles in Massachusetts as well as southern New Hampshire on its proposed path from Wright, N.Y., to Dracut, with lateral extensions.
The three TGP petitions filed with the DPU in January seek access to 55 property owners in Deerfield, Shelburne, Ashfield, Montague, Northfield, Erving and Plainfield who have not granted permission to the company to perform civil surveys and surveys of archaeological and cultural resources; wetlands and water body delineation; and endangered or rare species. Included in these properties are Deerfield Academy, Clarkdale Fruit Farm, Woolman Hill and Northfield Mount Hermon School. They also call for access to 14 private properties in Conway, Shelburne, Deerfield, and Greenfield, where permission to do geotechnical surveys has been denied — including Shelburne parcels owned by entertainer Bill and Camille Cosby.
A third petition by the company would allow the company access to perform vernal pool surveys on land owned by 18 private landowners whose properties are within 200 feet of the proposed pipeline’s centerline and are likely to contain vernal pools, in the company’s judgment.
Those 18 landowners, all of whom have denied access to the company for surveys that TGP says would ideally be completed in early spring, are in eight towns along the route, including Northfield, Warwick and Plainfield.
Ben Clark, a fourth-generation Deerfield farmer whose property is among those that would be directly affected by the DPU proceeding, told the gathering, “Our family has made it clear to Kinder Morgan that we do not want this pipeline. … The DPU should respect the wishes of affected landowners who do not want strangers surveying and disturbing their land. As a state body, you should hold the rights of the citizens of this commonwealth in higher regard than an out-of-state corporation. If this pipeline is approved, our water supply could be compromised, and our very way of life threatened.
“Property values would also be adversely affected. I worry about the future of our farm and my two young sons, who will hopefully choose to continue farming for another generation. This pipeline would impact not just our family and neighbors, but the thousands of customers who buy our healthy local fruit. This pipeline is not in the public good, and will only benefit the shareholders of Kinder Morgan. I urge you to listen to the opinions of the majority of affected landowners in the commonwealth, and reject this request to gain access to our lands.”
Conway Selectman Jim Moore, a representative to the Municipal Coalition Against the Pipeline, echoed the anger of earlier DPU proceedings on the NED pipeline, involving long-term agreements for pipeline gas for Berkshire Gas Co. when he told the panel, “This is the Commonwealth of Masssachusetts. Commonwealth means government of the people. … Every time we play God, we make a mess.”
Testimony presented on behalf of seven Western Massachusetts legislators, including Sen. Benjamin Downing, D-Pittsfield, and Reps. Paul Mark, D-Peru, Stephen Kulik, D-Worthington, and Susannah Whipps Lee, R-Athol, said, “It would premature, to say the least, for our Massachusetts DPU to grant permission to remove protected land rights, the constitution of our commonwealth, and the authority that constitution grants to our (Legislature) to benefit a private, profit-seeking interest.
“The survey TGP wishes to undertake are invasive and can be destructive to soil, vegetation, and the quiet enjoyment of owners and neighbors. …. They are being asked to shoulder the entire burden, against their will, while monetary benefits flow to an out-of-stat corporation looking to create new customers outside of our region.”
Ashfield resident Will Elwell, who built a 10-by-15-foot post-and-beam cabin to stand defiantly in the path of Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct natural gas pipeline, also spoke at the forum.
“We must protect our earth and you must protect our earth, that is your job,” he told the DPU officials. When they interrupted him in the middle of his speech, he threw the papers containing his speech in the air before walking away from the podium.
The hearing, which was punctuated with accomanied singing of “This Land is Your Land” during recess, included testimony by Joe Graveline of Northfield that any taking by eminent domain of Native American burial grounds requires a two-thirds vote of the state Legislature.
Ashfield Selectboard member Ron Koler got a standing ovation when he told the DPU, “History has shown us time and again that the erosion of moral principles when coupled with excessive government overreach will lead to radical democratic action. It was in fact a very similar governmental infringement on private ownership rights that resulted in unwarranted seizures and set the stage in 1778 for Shays’ Rebellion. These same trigger points lay at the very core of that conflict. Ashfield’s own farmers … joined Shays’ forces with serious determination to say ‘enough is enough.’ Trust me: Their courage, determination and passion yet remains in the bedrock and streams of these same hills and valleys. … We beg that you do not test the strength of our resolve.”
“It is premature for the DPU to override the rights of private land owners until the pipeline route is finalized,” said Edwin ‘Ted’ Cady Jr. of the Warwick Planning Board, who said the pipeline route had been altered three times in his town.
Richard Hubbard, executive director of Franklin Land Trust, which holds restrictions on three properties in the survey petitions, told the hearing, “The NED is proposed to cross dozens of properties that contain natural resources of such high significance that they have been permanently conserved, in many cases through the use of state and federal public dollars. …. The request by Tennessee Gas to access these and other properties … moves the conversation about the potential impacts of the NED into the very real.”
Gill Selectboard member Greg Snedeker told the panel, “You’re telling us to ignore the elephant in the room. That’s the way we see our government now: it’s been parsed off into these sections and have these very obscure processes. … We already have this process that’s pushing this down our throats.”
Steve Crawford, a spokesman for Kinder Morgan, told The Recorder, “These hearings are an opportunity for the community to be heard by the Department of Public Utilities. We are very respectful of property rights and do not enter properties for surveys unless we have received prior permission. We are not currently conducting any surveys in Massachusetts as the DPU process is continuing.”
Comments will be accepted by the DPU through May 2.
You can reach Richie Davis at
rdavis@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 269