SJ Gas Spokesman Explains Pipeline Project to County Chamber of Commerce

BURLEIGH – Members of the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce heard South Jersey Gas Government and Regulatory Affairs department policy analyst Dan Sperrazza tell of facts and fiction relating to the rejected pipeline project to B.L. England generating station, Beesley’s Point.
It was a part of the chamber’s “Ask Your Energy Provider Day” at Wildwood Golf and Country Club June 19.
Sperrazza’s address began with some statements made by project opponents that were untrue:
The pipeline is being built to export gas out of the region and building it will encourage development in the Pinelands.” He labeled that “Fiction.”
The pipeline will tear a 300-foot scar through the Pinelands that will pollute the aquifers and require the removal of trees.
He labeled it “Fiction.” He showed a slide of the side of a roadway (Route 49) where the pipeline would have been located.
Further he showed a slide that stated, “As a tightly regulated state utility, South Jersey Gas may only build needed infrastructure and deliver natural gas to customers with the seven southern counties of New Jersey. The pipeline would serve present customer needs and is not being built to entice or encourage development in the Pinelands.”
He also said opponents had said the utility planned to export gas to China, and India. “It is meant for our customers, there was no intent to export,” he said.
There is no energy shortage in New Jersey. If B.L. England (Beesley’s Point) shuts down the electric grid will be fine. That, too, was labeled, “Fiction.”
“The B.L. England/Beesley’s Point facility is needed to support the electricity needs of homes and businesses in South Jersey. Without this plant, hundreds of millions of dollars will be needed to upgrade and install new electric transmission lines which will pass through the Pinelands,” another slide stated.
An alternative to gas would be a 35 to 40 mile transmission line for electric through the Pinelands.
While some opponents said trees would be felled if the pipeline was approved, Sperrazza said no forest trees would be cut, but that 12 trees, located within the Department of Transportation right of way would be cut, and those by request of the DOT.
Sperrazza also noted that the utility has only one feed into Cape May County. That line, as are all pipelines, can possibly be damaged by careless excavators, harsh weather or other external forces.
A disruption of that sole pipeline could impact up to 142,000 customers in Cape May and Atlantic counties for a prolonged period, he said.
The area is the only in the utility’s service area that could be so vulnerable to such a disruption, headed.
Sperrazza pointed to options considered for pipeline placement that were dismissed for various reasons. One would have displaced 15 homeowners for 32 months, it was also close to roads in the Somers Point area, and would have hindered emergency access, and could possibly have harmed Great Egg Harbor Bay.
He said the utility dismissed that plan as did the Board of Public Utilities and the Department of Environmental Protection.
A second proposal would have used a railroad right of way, but the area was reforested, and would have hindered threatened and endangered species, that too was rejected.
Thus the alternative was the 22-mile route along Route 49, he said.
Sperrazza cited that about 300 jobs would have been generated in the project to build the pipeline to the generating plant.
Asked by a member what would the utility’s next plan be, Sperrazza said the utility was “working through the legal process, that no determination had been made but it hopes to do so in the next couple months.