The US Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) has requested that Constitution Pipeline address a series of concerns related to the National Historic Preservation Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, alternative routes, compressor stations, mitigation plans and how Constitution can justify the use of “remote sensing” for a large number of parcels they have been prevented from surveying due to landowner resistance, before USACE will consider approving the proposed pipeline.
USACE also called on Constitution to examine and explain the potential cumulative impacts of pipeline infrastructure build outs including the proposed Northeast Energy Direct (NED) Project, something Constitution and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) have resisted to date.
USACE ‘s concerns echo those raised by pipeline opposition groups including Stop the Pipeline and the Center for Sustainable Rural Communities and will likely result in lengthy delays for a project which is already more than a year and half behind schedule and still without approvals from the FERC, the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and USACE. Because of seasonal constraints imposed by DEC and other agencies to protect wildlife habitat, this latest roadblock could mean an additional delay of a year or more for Constitution.
Bob Nied, from the Center for Sustainable Rural Communities, said: “when citizen groups raise these types of substantive issues they are often ignored by the pipeline companies and FERC but when the USACE raises them they can’t be ignored. Without USACE approval, the pipeline project is dead.” Nied added that “Constitution will have a difficult time answering USACE’s concerns in any meaningful way because, short of withdrawing their application, they simply can’t fix the many things that are wrong with the pipeline proposal.”
The following is a link to the letter issued by USACE:
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