Above: Earlier this summer, protestors rally against the construction of a gas pipeline through western Monmouth and Burlington counties.
Two environmental groups are seeking to stop construction of a gas pipeline that has led to serious damage of a home in Upper Freehold and other environmental spills.
Attorneys for the New Jersey Sierra Club and the Pinelands Preservation Alliance requested a stay in the Superior Court's Appellate Division for work on New Jersey Natural Gas’s Southern Reliability Link pipeline.
The 30-mile long transmission line from Chesterfield to Manchester is expected to provide a backup source of natural gas to more than 1 million customers in Burlington, Monmouth and Ocean counties.
An Upper Freehold woman was displaced in June after drilling mud escaped from a nearby worksite and damaged her home, destabilizing its foundation. Earlier this month, a gas company representative said the company was working with the woman to remedy the damage.
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“After the blowout in Upper Freehold that caused a house to be condemned, we are finding more incidents along the SRL (Southern Reliability Link) route," New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel said in a news release.
The Department of Environmental Protection said the gas company reported three "inadvertent return" incidents that impacted freshwater wetlands between April and June during its horizontal drilling operations, the last of which caused damaged to the Upper Freehold home.
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An inadvertent return happens when the mud — a pressurized mix of clay and water used to soften earth for drilling and cool equipment — escapes a drilling site through cracks and fissures in the ground.
“NJNG’s environmental response to the Inadvertent Return events was quick, fully in line with our response and mitigation plans, and conducted with the oversight of DEP (state Department of Environmental Protection) officials," New Jersey Natural Gas spokesman Kevin Roberts said in an email.
Drilling remains suspended, he said.
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The New Jersey Sierra Club and the Pinelands Preservation Alliance said another five inadvertent return events happened from pipeline drilling in 2019 within the environmentally sensitive Pinelands portion of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
Earlier this month, DEP officials suspended the company's Freshwater Wetlands General Permit for the pipeline work, citing the "unanticipated, unauthorized environmental impacts to the DEP-regulated wetlands, transition areas, and streams, damage to the private residence and the need to protect public health, safety, welfare and the environment."
The Burlington County Engineering Department took a similar action last month when department officials issued a stop work order on the gas company's drilling activities, pending further evaluation of the incidents.
Roberts, of the gas company, said: "We continue to work collaboratively with the DEP and Burlington County Engineer to provide the information they’ve requested, including steps we are taking to strengthen our mitigation and prevention efforts for the project’s few remaining drilling locations.”
Yet environmentalists remain unpersuaded and continue to fight for all drilling on the pipeline to stop.
“NJNG (New Jersey Natural Gas) has demonstrated a clear pattern of construction accidents that have caused significant damage, the extent of which we don’t fully understand yet," Pinelands Preservation Alliance policy advocate Rhyan Grech said in a news release. "The Pinelands National Reserve consists of some of the most sensitive habitats on the planet, and the IRs (inadvertent returns) that have come to light need to be taken seriously and fully investigated.”
In 2018, New Jersey residents and businesses used 770,281 million cubic feet of natural gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Demand for natural gas in New Jersey rose from 547,206 million cubic feet consumed in 2006 to 773,221 million cubic feet in 2014. Demand has remained relatively stable since, according to the administration.
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Amanda Oglesby is an Ocean County native who covers Brick, Barnegat and Lacey townships as well as the environment. She has worked for the Press for more than a decade. Reach her at @OglesbyAPP, aoglesby@gannettnj.com or 732-557-5701.
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