'This
is a project that no one wanted, and this is a fitting end to the story'
Pipeline company Kinder Morgan has suspended its plans to build
a fracked gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts, citing poor demand
for its gas in a statement (pdf) released late Wednesday. Pipeline opponents are cheering the decision.
The
pipeline would have cost over $3 billion and spanned nearly 200 miles, according to the Boston Globe.
"I read the announcement from Kinder Morgan that they had suspended their process" for the Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline, said Bob Hamilton, chairman of the board of selectmen in Rindge, N.H., which was on the pipeline's route. "I led the room in a happy dance."
"They
said that we would welcome them with open arms, and it was the opposite,"
Elisa Benincaso of Rindge told New Hampshire's WMUR.
Kinder
Morgan had threatened to seize private land by eminent domain to build the
pipeline, as the Berkshire Eagle reported,
and people living on the route had so opposed the project that they had barred
company officials from their property, organized multiple protest marches,
and even constructed a replica of Henry
David Thoreau's Walden cabin to
block the pipeline's path.
"In its decision to suspend further work on the NED
pipeline, Kinder Morgan recognized what has been clear for some time, that the
project was too big and too costly for Massachusetts ratepayers," said Massachusetts Attorney General Maura
Healey to the Lowell Sun.
Healey
released a report (pdf) last year that found Massachusetts
residents did not need more pipelines to meet their energy needs, a study
Kinder Morgan officials dismissed out of hand and called "seriously
flawed," the Lowell Sun reports.
"This
is a project that no one wanted, and this is a fitting end to the story," said Judith Breselor, a legislator
representing New York's Rensselaer County, where Kinder Morgan had been
planning to build a 41,000-horsepower compressor station.
Massachusetts
Sen. Elizabeth Warren weighed in on Kinder Morgan's decision in a statement:
This announcement confirms what our citizens have been saying since the beginning—this project simply isn't necessary to meet our energy needs. The Kinder Morgan pipeline was the wrong project at the wrong time, but as Massachusetts works to modernize our energy system and ensure that prices remain affordable for families and businesses, it is urgent that we upgrade aging infrastructure and invest in clean technologies of the future.
"Today's victory proves once again that
protecting our communities, our health, and our climate is not partisan issue
and that people power can and will defeat corporate polluters," said director
of the Sierra Club's Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign Lena Moffit.
"Projects like
Northeast Energy Direct pipeline in New England or the Jordan Cove Liquefied
Natural Gas terminal in Oregon are not needed, and only serve to perpetuate our
dependence on fossil fuels," Moffit argued. "Instead, we must leave
dirty fuels in the ground and continue to invest in wind and solar to secure a
clean energy future."