TM Voters Say No To Pipeline

TM Voters Say No To Pipeline
Three articles defeated in Rindge; officials, Energy company to talk

RINDGE, N.H. — The stage is set for selectmen to meet with energy infrastructure company Kinder Morgan on the proposed natural gas pipeline after local voters overwhelmingly supported measures to block the project.

Rindge voters said yes by wide margins to three separate measures seeking to halt construction of the pipeline running through town.

Selectmen are set to meet with the company on March 25 to discuss the concerns raised by voters.

“The Board of Selectmen is going to take note (of the votes) and probably proceed accordingly,” said interim Town Manager Jane Pitt.

Voters at the ballot box for the Rindge annual Town Meeting voted yes to three articles to block the project: one addressing concerns for private property rights and fears the company would take land by eminent domain; one addressing concerns that the pipeline will harm the environment; and the third that would refuse the company the right to survey any town-owned land, especially the Converse Meadows conservation area.

The first two articles asked voters to oppose the project’s approval before the New Hampshire Energy Facility Site Evaluation Committee, citing the environmental and private property concerns.

The third article, blocking the company from town land, backs up a vote selectmen already took.

The board made its measure conditional on getting support from Town Meeting voters, Ms. Pitt said.

Kinder Morgan, the largest energy infrastructure company in North America, plans to lay the pipeline along the path of the Public Service of New Hampshire power transmission lines.

These lines cut through conservation land and at least two highways in Rindge before moving out to New Ipswich.

In Rindge, the transmission lines are on land adjacent to homes near the center of town.

The project still needs to go through a regulatory process in order to get federal certification for the pipeline.

The state of New Hampshire must also review the project.

Voters in Fitzwilliam and Winchester also supported similar measures during their votes.

Town Meeting season in New Hampshire falls during the first two weeks of March.

The path for the proposed natural gas pipeline was originally planned to stay within Massachusetts, effecting Orange, Ashburnham and Winchendon.

People throughout the region voiced strong opposition to the pipeline.

Residents, environmental activists and U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey helped push the plan north.

The new route, if approved, would travel from New York into western Massachusetts for 63 miles, turn north and continue for another 70 miles in southern New Hampshire before turning south again into Massachusetts, ending in Dracut.

Under the original proposal, Kinder Morgan planned to run the pipeline 127 miles through Massachusetts.

The company has said the proposed path would weave through 16 Massachusetts communities and 17 communities in New Hampshire.

One goal of the new path is to steer the pipeline away from largely undeveloped lands by following existing utility or developed routes.

The path would also cut through the properties of far fewer Massachusetts landowners, according to the company.