PITTSFIELD — A mock funeral, complete with a solemn procession with a coffin carried by mourners in black followed by eulogies, is planned for Monday afternoon across the street from Berkshire Superior Court as it prepares for a hearing on taking land in Otis State Forest for an extension of an existing pipeline in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
The action, by the Sugar Shack Alliance affinity group opposed to TGP’s Connecticut Expansion Project, aims at calling attention to the eminent domain taking of 6 acres to install the pipeline through the protected conservation land in Sandisfield despite a state constitutional prohibition of taking conservation property under Article 97.
The 1 p.m. gathering at Park Square aims at calling attention to a 2 p.m. court hearing on the eminent domain takings and the $640,000 negotiated settlement announced in December by Attorney General Maura Healey and Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matthew Beaton.
“The state, we feel, sold Otis State Forest down the river to the lowest bidder by coming to a settlement with Kinder Morgan that they could have the right to the land, land that is supposed to be perpetually conservation land, and not be used for other purposes,” said Cate Woolner of Northfield, an Alliance representative. “We are mourning the loss of conservation land being put back into, in this case, commercial use for environmental degradation.”
She guessed more than 100 “mourners” may attend, and the Alliance has trained more than 300 people in nonviolent civil disobedience.
“We mourn the Commonwealth’s capitulation to corporate power,” said the affinity group’s printed material. ” We mourn the trampling death of Article 97 protection in Otis State Forest. … Article 97 was intended to be a legislative ‘check’ to ensure that lands acquired for conservation purposes were not converted to other inconsistent uses.”
Berkshire Superior Court granted Tennessee Gas temporary construction easements last May, along with a permanent, 6-acre pipeline easement through the forest by eminent domain taking as authorized by the federal Natural Gas Act. Under Article 97, the Legislature would have to approve any easement through protected conservation land.
The company, which plans to add four miles of new underground pipeline for the project, nearly two miles of which will be constructed in the forest, directly adjacent to TGP’s two existing underground gas pipelines, sought the eminent domain taking because the Legislature had not voted to authorize the easement. The court ruled that the Natural Gas Act pre-empts Article 97 and the pipeline easements were granted.
Although the court isn’t expected to consider arguments Tuesday from anyone not a party in the case, Pipe Line Awareness Network for the Northeast and Berkshire Environmental Action Team have filed for the court to deny approval of the settlement, writing in a Jan. 24 letter, “We have grave concerns about the compensation amount that Tennessee will pay for being allowed to violate our state constitution … The Commonwealth is being egregiously under-compensated for the destruction of part of a “permanently” protected State Forest that the people and our legislators did not release from protection.”
The letter also pointed to settlement provisions that they found “problematic,” including two requests that remain to be decided by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has approved the project, and the state Department of Conservation and recreation’s waiving of all permitting, including construction and vehicle access permits without public comment on the applications.
The groups also seek protection of “rock outcrops and stone walls,” including protection of ceremonial stone landscape features identified by the Narragansett Indian Tribe according to state’s National Heritage program.
Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. has renewed its request to FERC for permission to begin felling trees before the end of March, despite ongoing appeals of water quality certification permits from the state Department of Environmental Protection, according to Kathryn Eiseman of PLAN-NE.
Once that tree-felling work begins, opponents of the project have said they plan to plan to participate in civil disobedience to prevent it from taking place.
For anyone who plans to observe Monday’s 2 p.m. court hearing, Sugar Shack Alliance has advised that no demonstrations or signs are allowed in the court.