Activists Cheer As Fracking Pipeline Cancelled, Threatened NY State to Boston

Activists cheered when Kinder Morgan made a surprise announcement – it dropped plans for a natural gas pipeline they have been fighting that would stretch from Pennsylvania to Boston.

The 419-mile Northeast Energy Direct (NED) Pipeline threatened dozens of communites, watersheds and forests along the way, along with air and water pollution. Compressor stations were also planned for three counties in NY.

Kinder Morgan is North America’s biggest pipeline operator and at $3.3 billion, NED was its largest planned investment. Its debt has grown to over $41 billion as falling demand has crushed expansion needs from the oil and gas industry.

The company says it "suspended" the project because it couldn’t get enough long-term commitments to buy the gas. "We think that’s only part of the story. We are the other part," exclaims the activist group, Stop NY Fracked Gas Pipeline.

"This is another nail in the coffin for fossil fuel usage in the USA and beyond," says Robert Connors and Becky Meier, leaders of the group. Construction was set start in January 2017.

"This is a project that no one wanted, and this is a fitting end to the story," says Judith Breselor, a legislator in NY’s Rensselaer County. "Virtually everyone was against it in our town," John Clarkson, Town Supervisor of Bethlehem told TimesUnion. The town passed a resolution against it in February.

This is just one pipeline activists are work hard to prevent. Calls are on-going to stop the Constitution Pipeline.

Read our article, The Other Keystone: Constitution Pipeline in NY State.