“As far as Connecticut goes, there hasn’t been an increased use in gas it’s actually stalled. “This was based on an old projection of an increase in gas use that never manifested,” Wessel said.
Co-founder Rosemary Wessel questioned the market need for the gas, likely being obtained via hydraulic fracturing (fracking), that the pipeline will transport to customers in Connecticut.
“We’re looking at a stage in our resistance where we’re shifting away from trying to protect the forest, because that ship has sailed, and refocusing our energies on keeping this pipeline out of the ground,” she said.įerla noted that the Sugar Shack Alliance aims to resist all new investments in fossil fuels because of the threat of climate change and what the group characterizes as negative environmental health and justice issues associated with fossil fuels.Īnother organization, No Fracked Gas in Mass!, opposes the pipeline project for similar reasons. Their charges were recently reduced to civil citations, according to Abby Ferla, a spokeswoman for the Sugar Shack Alliance.įerla said that though the group was unable to save the affected forestland, its members will continue to fight the project. At least 24 members of the coalition have been arrested for attempting to block construction and charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct. One activist coalition in opposition to the pipeline, Sugar Shack Alliance, protested in the forest in late April and early May of 2016 in the hopes of preventing TGP from felling trees. Two months later, Berkshire County Superior Court ruled in favor of Kinder Morgan, arguing that the Natural Gas Act of 1938, which permits eminent domain powers to interstate pipeline companies, overruled the Massachusetts Constitution. Otis State Forest had been conserved under Article 97 of the Massachusetts Constitution for decades, until Kinder Morgan sued the state in March 2016 for a 2-mile easement through the forest. (TGP), the subsidiary of Kinder Morgan that is developing the project, finished clearing the 30 affected acres of Otis State Forest last week, the likelihood of stopping or significantly delaying the pipeline’s construction is decreasing. Compared to high-profile pipeline projects such as the Keystone XL oil pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline, the proposed Connecticut Expansion Project seems relatively innocuous at first glance, only spanning 13.4 miles in three distinct locations in New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut.īut the 3.8-mile stretch of pipeline proposed in Berkshire County, Mass., has been met with resistance from environmental activists, local and state officials, state agencies, a Native American organization and residents of Sandisfield, the town of 915 through which the pipeline would run.Ĭriticisms of the project include: its passing through Otis State Forest the environmental impacts of the natural gas it would transport a perceived lack of market need for that gas the damaging of ceremonial stones along the route of the pipeline sacred to the Narragansett Indian Tribe the process by which the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee (FERC) approved the project.Īs a result of multiple legal challenges, the project is more than a year behind schedule.
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