Environmental Groups Denounce SRL Drilling Continuation

Pinelands Preservation Alliance (PPA) and New Jersey Sierra Club condemn the Monday decision by New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to reinstate the permit to New Jersey Natural Gas (NJNG), allowing the company to resume drilling in the construction of the Southern Reliability Link (SRL) pipeline. DEP suspended the Freshwater Wetlands permit in July after a series of construction accidents led to the condemnation of a home along the pipeline route.

On June 19^th, Barbara Fox-Cooper heard a loud noise and discovered that her foundation and basement floor had cracked, and that a grey sludge was pouring into her basement. She and her neighbors stopped the construction crew, who had been building the pipeline along Province Line Road in Upper Freehold for several months. Hydrostatic pressure from the drilling fluid which escaped the boring hole had caused the damage. The building inspector condemned Barbara’s house, giving her two minutes to grab her belongings and vacate her home.

However, this was not the first destructive incident during SRL construction. Several days earlier, neighbors noticed the stream on their properties flowing grey and cloudy, and had notified the DEP. Enforcement staff responded and inspected the cleanup effort, consisting of “vacuuming” the sludge out of the stream and installing haybales to prevent spread. Afterwards, construction could proceed.

Horizontal directional drilling (HDD) is a technique to install pipe or cables without digging a trench. The method purports to drill underneath sensitive areas, like streams and wetlands, to avoid damage during construction. But HDD has been demonstrated to fail 50% of the time[1], causing so-called “inadvertent returns” (IRs) where drilling sludge escapes the intended pathway and spills into the environment.

The June accident resulted in notices of violation issued by the DEP to NJNG, and ultimately the suspension of their permit. While HDD was halted, the trenching work continued where no streams or wetlands were present. NJNG was required to submit plans to DEP detailing how the company would remediate the environmental damage, identify the cause of the illegal discharges and prevent these failures moving forward. NJNG did additional testing of the drill sites, hired consultants and submitted a modified drilling plan. However, NJNG never definitively identified the causes of each accident, nor did they pay any monetary penalties. DEP felt this information was good enough, but SRL opponents feel that the submitted plans are insufficient to overshadow the demonstrated inability of the company to safely build this pipeline.

Over the summer additional confirmed construction spills came to light, including a series of IRs in April along Province Line Road, as well as six that occurred in early 2019 within the Pinelands National Reserve but were concealed by Pinelands Commission staff from the public and the Commissioners. That cover-up is especially egregious given that the pipeline’s approval violated several Pinelands laws.

The SRL route includes Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst through sensitive Pinelands habitat. The law only allows this type of project if it is associated with the function of the base. However, the pipeline is merely traversing the base; it does not connect to any of the facilities on the site. NJNG claims that the SRL is necessary to provide reliable service to its customers. But the company never demonstrated its necessity during the application process. In fact, independent experts testified that the redundancy line is unneeded, and that there is adequate capacity with existing infrastructure. PPA and Sierra Club are appealing the approvals in court.

“The SRL project received approvals from the DEP, the Pinelands Commission, the Board of Public Utilities, Ocean, Monmouth and Burlington Counties despite warnings of the dangers of HDD and risks to public safety and the environment by concerned resident and groups such as PPA and Sierra Club,” said Rhyan Grech, Policy Advocate at PPA. “Even after our predictions were proven right by the pattern of accidents, these agencies allowed construction to proceed. The complacency of our public agencies demonstrates a clear skirting of their responsibilities to protect New Jerseyans and our natural resources. The only benefit of this pipeline is delivered into the pockets of NJNG’s shareholders.”

“It is outrageous that the DEP is allowing this to go forward. How can the DEP allow a process where it is known to have unauthorized or illegal discharges? This is an illegal discharge into groundwater, streams, and wetlands that is in violation of the Clean Water Act under New Jersey and cannot be permitted. The whole rule for HDD should be scrapped. Instead DEP is using the people living along the route as test subjects for a procedure that will cause major problems. What’s even worse is that DEP has not dealt with the current violations caused by the SRL construction.,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “We should be granted a stay so that we can have our day in court. DEP is pushing this pipeline through without thinking about the community and the people living along the route. Instead of protecting the Pinelands, DEP is promoting pipelines.”

[1] Skonberg, E.R., Tammi, C.E., Desilets, A.M. and Srivastava, V., 2008, Inadvertent slurry returns during horizontal directional drilling: Understanding the frequency and causes. Environmental Concerns in Rights-of-Way Management: Eighth International Symposium, p. 613-621.