Sierra Club Sues Pinelands Commission over NJNGas SRL Pipeline

The New Jersey Sierra Club is suing the Pinelands Commission on their approval of New Jersey Natural Gas’s Southern Reliability Link pipeline in the Pinelands. We are opposing their decision to allow a 28-mile gas pipeline to destroy environmentally sensitive land in the Pinelands and threaten communities along the route in Burlington, Ocean, and Monmouth Counties. We believe that the Pinelands Commission violated the Comprehensive Management Plan and the Pinelands Protection Act by approving this pipeline, especially since they did not follow proper procedure to approve the pipeline. This pipeline clearly violates the Pinelands rules because this type of infrastructure is only allowed through the Pinelands Forest Preservation Area, if it primarily serves the Pinelands, but it does not. We also believe that these actions violated the New Jersey Administrative Procedures Act.

“We are going to Court to do the job the Pinelands Commission is supposed to do, which is to protect the Pinelands. The Pinelands Commission have sold out the Pinelands and the environment by approving the NJG Southern Reliability Link pipeline. Their approval flies in the face of the thousands of New Jersey citizens who have spoken out against the pipeline and contradicts the Commission’s own rules. We are filing this lawsuit because the pipeline clearly violates the Comprehensive Management Plan and the Pinelands Act. We are doing this to protect the Pinelands from this damaging and unnecessary pipeline because it violates the Commission’s own rules,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “The Commission originally approved the pipeline and was challenged by NJ Sierra Club and others. The court remanded the Commission’s approval back to them. They have turned around and approved it all once more, again violating the law.”

The approval process and approval itself violated NJ’s Administrative Procedures Act since they did rulemaking without a rule. By moving forward with this application, with absence of rule-making and they need to follow proper public procedure, which is required for this type of infrastructure. They approved the project as a private development however, a regulated utility is not a private development. This discrepancy violates the Comprehensive Management Plan. Since it is not allowed in the CMP and there is no process, it is therefore prohibited. This pipeline is also prohibited under Pinelands rules unless it benefits the people within the Pinelands, though it will clearly serve people living outside the Pinelands.

“The unnecessary and dangerous SRL pipeline will cut through environmentally sensitive land, threaten communities, and cause more climate change impacts. The Pinelands is the largest open space on the eastern seaboard and recognized for its biodiversity by the United Nations. It is also the country’s first National Reserve and holds 17 trillion gallons of water in its aquifer. When the Pinelands Act was passed forty years ago, one of the major reasons was to prevent pipelines coming through to connect offshore oil to refineries in south Jersey,” said Jeff Tittel. “The Commission has sided with the gas companies over the public that they are supposed to work for. Instead of setting aside their approval and going back to the drawing board, the Pinelands Commission is going forward with the NJNG process. This is probably because they lost the same court case for the SJG pipeline and expect to lose it for this one as well.”

There is no need for this pipeline other than to promote fracking and the burning of fossil fuels. The SRL pipeline is only part of the bigger push for fracking and dirty infrastructure. The Southern Reliability Link pipeline, Garden State Expansion compressor station, and PennEast Pipeline are all one project. NJNG is a 20% partner in PennEast and is getting their 180,000 dekatherms of natural gas from them. PennEast is putting that gas into a Transco substation in Ewing which is part of the Garden State Expansion. That same amount of gas will then go to compressor station in Chesterfield and into the Southern Reliability Link pipeline. The compressor station, Southern Reliability Link, and PennEast Pipeline would work together as one system and should be evaluated as such.

“This pipeline is part of a bigger picture, which is the rush to bring fracked gas from Pennsylvania to the New Jersey coast for development. The SRL is directly interconnected to the Garden State Expansion compressor station and PennEast Pipeline. The SRL would connect to the Garden State Expansion (GSE) compressor station in Chesterfield which would get gas from the PennEast Pipeline. These projects would be working together to bring fracked gas into New Jersey. NJNG and other utility companies are planning to criss-cross our state with dangerous pipelines,” said Jeff Tittel. “There have been conflicts of interest throughout this whole process. The decision-makers for this pipeline have been tainted from Christie down. He put many of the Commissioners in their positions so they would help him push through these pipelines.”

The Christie Administration has removed commissioners who voted against the pipeline and stacked it with people who support pipelines instead of protecting the Pines. The Pinelands is the largest open space on the eastern seaboard and recognized for its biodiversity by the United Nations. It is also the country’s first National Reserve and holds 17 trillion gallons of water in its aquifer. The Sierra Club is being represented by Raghu Murthy of the Eastern Environmental Law Center.

“We are going to court because the credibility of the Pinelands is at stake. No longer is the Pinelands Commission an independent body with a purpose to protect the Pinelands. In an act of betrayal of the people of New Jersey, the Pinelands Commission broke their own rules and rubberstamped the NJNG SRL Pipeline. This decision is a major blow to the Pinelands, but the battle isn’t over yet. We must continue to protect the Pinelands because both of these pipelines will create irreversible harm to wetlands, streams, as well as damage important open spaces, and threaten one of the largest sources of fresh drinking water on the east coast,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “We beat them in court once with the SJG pipeline and we’ll do it again to keep this unnecessary project from cutting a scar through our state and threatening our drinking water. We fought to save the Pinelands 40 years ago and we’re going to keep fighting now!”