HOLMDEL – Members of the Holmdel Township Committee have reaffirmed their opposition to the proposed Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) project.
During a meeting on April 28, committee members passed a resolution which states their objection to the proposed construction and installation of a 23-mile-long methane gas pipeline through Raritan Bay from Old Bridge to Rockaway, N.Y.
The project is being proposed by Williams-Transco.
The committee’s resolution states that the 26-inch diameter pipeline that would transmit natural gas from Pennsylvania to New York, through the Raritan Bay, would directly impact Monmouth County’s Bayshore region.
On June 5, 2019, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) denied Williams-Transco’s application for the development of the pipeline based in part on the significant impacts to the water quality and ecosystem of the Raritan Bay and Lower New York Bay, according to the resolution.
Committee members said that on Jan. 21, Williams-Transco submitted a new application for the project to the DEP, which marks the fourth time the applicant has sought approval from the DEP for the project.
“The Holmdel Township Committee remains concerned about the project’s potential for environmental harm to marine and coastal ecosystems, as well as negative impacts to the health, safety and welfare of the Bayshore region,” municipal officials said in the resolution.
The April 28 resolution reiterates the committee’s previously stated opposition to the NESE project.
According to a similar resolution that was passed by municipal officials in nearby Hazlet on April 21, the NESE pipeline “will have severe negative impacts to the Raritan and Lower New York bays, such as disruption of roughly 14,165 acres of the seabed of the Raritan Bay, the discharge of 690,000 gallons of drilling fluid and chemicals into the bay, there-suspending over 1 million tons of toxic muck contaminated by PCBs, dioxin, lead, mercury and arsenic, and the destruction of over 1,000 acres of benthic habitat that houses marine fish, shellfish and larva.”
Hazlet’s elected officials said the pipeline would endanger marine and wildlife in a number of ways, including the sieving of more than 3.5 million gallons of seawater that would destroy any living thing that is caught in the process, and the creation of loud sounds and powerful vibrations that accompany pipeline development.
