Opposition to Vermont Gas Systems’ (VTGas) pipeline extension is mounting in the northern Addison County town of Monkton, and the town’s selectboard just signed on.
Opponents are taking issue with the proposed route of the pipeline along Monkton Road, not the pipeline itself. They want the high-pressure pipeline to run down the utility transmission corridor owned by VELCO, like it does in some other towns, rather than through the middle of their town where it could pose a threat to people’s lives and property.
The Monkton stretch of the proposed pipeline is part of a roughly $70 million, 42-mile project that marks the beginning of VTGas’ proposed southern expansion in Vermont and over to New York.
On Monday, the Monkton selectboard accepted a petition signed by more than 100 townspeople who oppose the proposed pipeline corridor. The board then approved a letter to the Public Service Board, encouraging the quasi-judicial body charged with permitting the project to prohibit a pipeline through one of the main residential regions of the town. This decision comes in anticipation of the utility’s planned application filing on Dec. 20.
“We are not against the pipeline as a whole, but we don’t think that putting the pipeline there is the best route,” said John Phillips, the selectboard chair. “It’s too close to residential housing. There are wells and there are homes. We would prefer that Vermont Gas follow the VELCO right of way.”
In Phillips’ letter, he asked the state to provide a minimum distance of 300 feet between homes and the high-pressure gas line right of way. He wrote that the board is concerned about pipelines being buried near town-maintained ditches for water run-off and that the town wants to be included in plans for gas distribution, not just transmission to other areas of the state.
Jennifer Baker is a major opponent of the proposed route. Baker lives along Monkton Road where VTGas wants to lay the pipeline, and she said that she has never seen her town more unified than it is over this proposal.
“I’ve never seen an issue that has united conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats like this,” said Baker. “It would have a major impact on people’s properties and their property rights; it has enormous environmental impacts; and it (could) destroy the viewshed coming into town.”
The town’s Zoning Administrator Ken Wheeling raised concerns about the pipeline being placed near a proposed 36-acre quarry. The quarry, as the Addison County Independent reported, would rely on blasting rock ledges.
Catherine Shahan, who lives down the road from Baker, is worried about her family’s safety.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to have this pipeline just feet from where my daughter lays her head to go to bed,” she said.
This is a legitimate concern, said Adam Lougee, director of the Addison County Regional Planning Commission.
“It’s a big transmission pipeline — or relatively big for Addison County, Vt. — and it’s at a high pressure,” he said. “There have been accidents on the national scene recently that make me believe that, when you can, the best decision is to isolate these pipelines from people’s homes.”
He did add that VTGas has a very strong safety record with only one incident in the last decade, when ice reportedly fell on a house distribution line and caused a fire.
In recent weeks, Baker said she measured the construction right of way and found that it runs through some her neighbors’ homes. VTGas spokesman Steve Wark said that no houses would be in the right of way.
“None of the data we’ve seen would support that,” said Wark. “Right now, it’s all in the public road right of way … We would be willing to purchase private land for easements.”
VTGas needs a 50-foot permanent right of way for the pipeline and an additional 25-foot right of way for construction, which is temporary, said Wark. Construction in the public right of way will not deviate from the public road unless property owners sell easements, he added.
One of the difficulties VTGas is facing, said Lougee, is that “it’s in between a rock and a hard place.”
The company was “very interested in using the area in the VELCO corridor,” said Wark, but its surveyors flagged potential environmental and archeological hazards. They also encountered opposition from landowners near that route, he said.
VTGas is still open to running the line down the VELCO corridor if the Public Service Board deems that avenue the most appropriate, said Wark.
“I think there is general agreement that the project itself is viewed by a large segment of the communities as beneficial,” said Wark. “The question as to where we build the pipeline and the corridor has always been the most difficult one. … There will always be these sorts of tradeoffs.”
But this tradeoff has sparked a flame in Monkton.
“They moved into the road right of way in Monkton, which has upset a lot of people,” said Lougee. “They’ve got to find a route that displeases as few people as possible.”
On Wednesday night, the Addison County Regional Planning Commission will take an official stance on the project after meeting with its 30-plus delegates from towns across the county.
“I imagine that the Monkton delegation will ask my commission to support the position that their selectboard took,” he said. “And if I were a betting man, I’d bet my commission will.”
