Vermont Gas Systems (VTGas) and International Paper’s Ticonderoga, N.Y., mill announced Wednesday that they had signed an agreement to deliver natural gas to the mill via a pipeline to be built beneath Lake Champlain.
If approved by state regulators, the Lake Champlain pipeline would run from Addison County to Ticonderoga under the nation’s sixth largest body of fresh water. It is a proposed extension of the $57 million Addison County expansion project VTGas has been planning for roughly two years.
Under the contract, which expires at the end of 2015, the Ticonderoga mill would fully fund a lateral pipeline from the Addison County expansion, and the mill would pay for an upgrade of the southern gas line, said VTGas spokesman Steve Wark.
“Vermonters will not be paying for that,” he said, adding the benefit that the upgraded steel line will have for speeding up VTGas’ expansion into southern Vermont, particularly Rutland County.
Wark would not divulge further details surrounding the agreement, but he did say VTGas would propose laying a pipeline under Lake Champlain using a method called directional drilling.
“It allows us to cross the lake without disturbing the bottom,” he said.
VTGas plans to submit permit requests for the first stage of the Addison County expansion in December 2012 and will submit subsequent requests for the Lake Champlain line. The utility, which is owned by Gaz Métro, Green Mountain Power’s parent company, plans to begin a series of studies to better assess the geography of the area and identify a westerly corridor to Ticonderoga from the Middlebury area. Wark previously said that if everything goes according to plan, VTGas would serve the Ticonderoga mill by 2015.
International Paper spokeswoman Donna Wadsworth said that the agreement would help the mill wean its consumption of oil, which is its primary source of fuel.
“It means significant energy cost reductions and an opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 26 percent,” she said, adding that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is important to keep in line with New York state reduction goals.
Gov. Peter Shumlin last month told VTDigger that he supports the project because it would reduce harmful emissions blown over the lake to Vermont and will help speed up the southern expansion of natural gas in Vermont.
