NORTH SALEM, N.Y. - North Salem has joined the growing list of municipalities that are taking a formal stand against a controversial natural gas pipeline proposal.
The Town Board voted unanimously on Tuesday, July 22 to urge Gov. Kathy Hochul and relevant state agencies to deny permits for Canada-based Enbridge Inc.’s “Project Maple,” which aims to increase capacity along the existing 1,100-mile-long Algonquin Pipeline.
Part of the fracked gas pipeline passes through Westchester as it winds its way north to New England.
It crosses communities such as Somers and Yorktown but skirts North Salem just north of its border with the Putnam County town of Southeast.
North Salem, however, retains a dog in the fight because of its proximity to one of the pipeline’s compressor stations.
The facility is located on Tulip Road in Brewster about two miles from the hamlet of Peach Lake and about .7 miles from Dingle Ridge Road, according to Amy Rosmarin, a former North Salem councilwoman and one of four co-founders of the group Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion (SAPE).
She and fellow environmental activists Suzannah Glidden of North Salem and Susan Val Dolsen of Rye are among those leading the charge to defeat “Project Maple.” They both appeared before the board in support of the resolution.
In 2018, North Salem joined forces with Somers and Southeast to urge the state to adopt tougher regulations for natural gas facilities after strong smells from “blowdown” emissions from the compressor panicked Peach Lake residents who feared there was about to be a massive gas explosion.
“Blowdowns” are processes that relieve pressure in the gas lines.
It also rattled folks at the town’s high school/middle and elementary schools on June Road.
“Project Maple” aims to increase the pipeline’s capacity.
To Rosmarin and Glidden, that means more nasty stuff like nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, benzene, and other toxins will be vented into the air.
“We breath that. When the wind is coming in our direction, people in North Salem are breathing that,” Rosmarin said.
One of the concerns raised at the time of that incident was that the state Department of Environmental Control (DEC) did not require air-monitoring equipment at such facilities.
The DEC promised that it was “rigorously” monitoring all state-permitted operations and was posed to take “swift” action if violations were found.
Supervisor Warren Lucas said then – and continues to argue -- that both the town and the schools need to be notified when “blowdowns,” whether scheduled or unscheduled, are occurring so they can appropriately deal with any issues that might arise.
According to climate activist Van Dolsen, the Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) Project travels from Rockland County, under the Hudson River, and past the now-shuttered Indian Point nuclear power facility. It continues through the Westchester towns of Cortlandt, Somers, Yorktown, and into the Putnam County town of Southeast where it has a compressor station.
Among the communities that have taken a stand against the proposed expansion, aka “Project Maple,” are Hastings-on-Hudson, Croton-on-Hudson, Ossining, and Peekskill. Rockland County, where there are plans to expand pipeline’s compressor station in Stony Point, just did the same.
Completed in 2021, AIM grew the pipeline and “increased compression” by a significant amount.
“Project Maple” itself is a proposal that Enbridge announced but has not yet filed an application for with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
According to a media report, the company said it’s holding discussions with “possible project customers” to “better define what a potential project could involve.”
Enbridge, which submitted an “Open Season Notice” for the project in 2023, was exploring “opportunities to enhance the reliability and affordability of energy” in the Northeast, the report said.
“There is some work going on in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts which they are calling maintenance, but, so far, no work has begun in New York state,” Van Dolsen said.
Health Risks
According to North Salem’s resolution, the Southeast compressor station “already emits into the air 37.6 tons of nitrogen oxides, 32 tons of carbon monoxide, 24.6 tons of VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds), 12.5 tons of PM (Particulate Matter) 2.5, two tons of formaldehyde, (and) 0.19 tons of benzene, as well as other toxins.”
These pollutants have been linked to “increased respiratory conditions such as asthma and COPD as well as cardiovascular illnesses, birth defects and cancer and are a particular health risk affecting infants and children, the elderly and health-compromised residents.”
Emissions “can be carried downwind to residents within a six-mile radius” of the compressor station or, the resolution stated, “a greater distance depending on weather conditions and terrain.”
Current federal air quality standards aren’t “sufficient to fully protect human health,” it added.
Enbridge says that “Project Maple” is needed to address energy supply constraints and to potentially lower costs for consumers.
However, it’s been facing significant grassroots opposition, including from the Sierra Club and Food & Water Watch, two groups that don’t believe those benefits outweigh long-term health and environmental risks.
They argue that such plans are a thinly disguised attempt to prolong and extend reliance on fossil fuels, diverting attention away from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.
Because Enbridge will have to get FERC’s approval and because it will also need permits from the state DEC and/or Public Service Commission, the time's ripe for potentially affected communities to launch a preemptive strike, Rosmarin said.
Natural gas pipelines “pose significant safety hazards, evidenced by frequent incidents of leaks, explosions, and environmental damage,” the resolution read.
Building out the existing Algonquin line and creating new infrastructure or reviving projects such as the previously defeated Williams Co.’s Constitution and NESE (aka Nessie) pipelines “would lead to higher costs for ratepayers who are already facing rate hikes and higher health costs from added air pollution,” it asserted.
In Nessie’s case, foes had cited negative impacts the 23-mile extension from New Jersey to New York could have on marine life in the Raritan and Lower New York Bay.
The Constitution pipeline would run from Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna County to New York’s Schoharie County.
Climate Goals
“Project Maple” and the other major fracked gas infrastructures are in, it added, “direct conflict with New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act statutory goals," which call for the statewide reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030 and by 85 percent by 2050.
Supporters of the legislation say that it, and resolutions opposing pipeline expansion projects, are key to helping New York meet that goal.
Environmentalists rallied after President Trump and Hochul met recently to discuss the buildout of fossil fuel pipelines in New York.
They claim that on July 2, Hochul “quietly fast-tracked” the review process for Nessie.
Both of Williams’ pipelines were claimed to have been part of the governor’s negotiations to get a $5 billion wind farm going again. The Trump administration had issued a stop-work order on it this past spring.
According to a petition circulated on actionnetwork.org, if the pipelines are approved, “New Yorkers will be saddled with increasing costs to pay for the infrastructure and the impacts of its pollution--all the while Donald Trump's Big Oil cronies and billionaire friends reap the profits.”
The best way to lower bills, cut pollution, and invest in green jobs is, the petition claimed, to commit to energy efficient construction and by scaling up renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and battery storage.
Lucas was "happy" to support the resolution but felt it might not accomplish much if the federal government swoops in to claim that pipeline projects constitute “interstate commerce” and that the state doesn’t have the final say.
Previously, he’d talked to the DEC about requiring some kind of system to filter toxic emissions from the Southeast compressor facility and also about curbing the actual venting itself.
“They do this (blowdowns) all over the place. The amount of stuff they dump out here is enough to heat a bunch of homes,” Lucas said, adding: “So it’s not a very good use of natural resources."
“That was my concern the last time. I suggested we go talk to the EPA (federal Environmental Protection Agency) or some other folks who could actually affect this,” he said.
Noting that permitting “IS a state issue,” Councilwoman Katherine Daniels said: “I absolutely think it’s worth doing even if the federal government decides to step in and override state law, which I don’t think it would do.”
Councilman Brent Golisano agreed, saying: “Yeah, I think it would be helpful. I do.”
Councilman Martin Aronchick thought urging the state to take a position on public health and safety issues was a “necessary first step” that could “tee up a conversation about federal intervention, if that’s where the federal government might be going.”
Rosmarin re-asserted that states issue water and air permits and have the right to approve or deny them.
“That may be correct, but they can only enforce them to federal standards,” Lucas responded, reiterating that he was alright with approving the resolution but still thought that there was a “problem with the control New York state thinks it has.”
It will be sent to Hochul as well as to the town’s state and federal elected representatives.
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