The Monkton Selectboard and Vermont Gas Systems have agreed to terms and conditions for a piece of a proposed 41.2-mile natural gas line. But that does not mean all Monkton residents are gung ho about VTGas’ $86.6 million southern expansion project that is slated to run through their town.
Monkton Selectboard Chairman John Phillips said the agreement, known as a Memorandum of Understanding, was the best the town could do with the resources it has.
“I think the pipeline will go through no matter what. We can’t fight it on our own,” Phillips said. “It would cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars. New Haven isn’t fighting it. Vergennes isn’t fighting it. Middlebury is for it. If we can’t stop it, let’s get the best deal we can for the citizens of the town, and I think we did that.”
The board first rejected a similar memorandum last week. The board met in executive session earlier this week with lawyers and tweaked the document’s language. The board then gave the document a 5-0 go-ahead on Wednesday.
The agreement compels VTGas, among other conditions, to distribute natural gas to customers in the village and around Monkton Pond, which includes Monkton Central School. The memorandum also requires VTGas to test the water wells of property owners within 300 feet of the line, sets time parameters for construction and blasting, and requires the gas company to “remediate, indemnify, and hold harmless property owners for any physical damage to property if and to the extent damage is caused by construction and/or blasting.”
Monkton resident Jennifer Baker said, “It’s heavy on mitigation and remediation if they damage something, but I’d prefer to see something more preventative to keep the damage from happening,”
Baker spearheaded opposition to the originally proposed route of the pipeline through the center of Monkton. VTGas responded to strong opposition from the towns of Hinesburg and Monkton by mostly rerouting the line along and adjacent to the existing VELCO utility transmission corridor.
“For constructability, there are places we deviate from it,” VTGas spokesman Steve Wark said. “The most notable is the Rotax Road area.”
Jane Palmer and her husband, Nathan, own a farm on Monkton’s Rotax Road. The right of way for the gas line is slated for 150 feet from their home, and they have been granted intervener status in VTGas’ application to the Public Service Board, the quasi-judicial body responsible for permitting the project.
Palmer said an engineer came to look at the property and found that if there were a leak in the pipeline, their home would be within the explosion radius.
“If we’re less than 300 feet, then we’re incinerated and everything we own is incinerated,” she said. “It just doesn’t make sense to put this so close to homes.”
Selectman Phillips said that the board worked with VTGas to run the line more than 300 feet away from homes and that only a couple of homes are now within that radius.
Wark said VTGas could not run the line 300 feet away from every home in Monkton.
“It’s just not possible,” he said. “If we could accommodate it, we would. From our perspective, and from a coding perspective, it’s very acceptable if a transmission line is under 300 feet from a home. Safety is our number one goal, and we want to deliver gas safely and reliably.”
Palmer says that the question of safety causes other concerns.
“A lot of people are freaked out about having this line close to their home,” she said. “We’ve been told (by a realtor and home appraiser) it’s a 10-15 percent hit on our property value, and that’s a big deal for us. This is our biggest asset. The safety issue triggers a lot of other issues.”
Palmer said that the Public Service Board process is difficult to navigate and cumbersome for everyday people — an issue that the Legislature did not address this year, but that many legislators said would be addressed next year, since a governor-ordered commission on energy siting issued its final recommendations to make the process more citizen friendly.
Many Monkton property owners have begun signing easements with VTGas, but Palmer said many of them don’t have the money for legal counsel to navigate the negotiation process with a well-funded utility.
“The burden is put on the landowner,” she said. “This process is not easy. People who have this right of way that VTGas wants don’t have money to hire a lawyer. They are asking people to sign easements and people don’t have money for representation. They are kind of pulling a Shumlin here,” referring to Gov. Peter Shumlin’s controversial land deal with his East Montpelier neighbor, Jeremy Dodge.
Wark said the agreement addresses this problem. VTGas has agreed to pay up to $2,000 for the town to hire legal counsel to provide information sessions to residents who will have utility easements. The agreement also stipulates that VTGas must pay up to $4,000 for a consultant during the construction process, if the town wants the oversight. If that process exceeds four weeks, the town would receive an additional $1,000 a week.
Wark said the signing of this agreement is significant.
“It was an important step,” he said. “There are no towns that are actively opposing the project. Each town has given back its unique set of feedback and we’re trying to accommodate to the best we can.”
VTGas is now in the second round of the Public Service Board’s discovery process, where the more-than 30 parties on the application have the opportunity to participate in the application process and ask VTGas questions.
