“This is a great victory for the communities, organizations and
elected officials that fought this unneeded, polluting project for years.”
How close is your home, school, or playground to the proposed PennEast pipeline route? Use this interactive map to find out.
(Click on + repeatedly until you see your location. You will have to reposition the map as you click to stay on the route.)
The PennEast Pipeline Company, LLC, proposes to construct a 118-mile natural gas pipeline from Pennsylvania through towns in Mercer and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey.
PennEast is a partnership that includes the following companies:
The PennEast pipeline would threaten the health and safety of our communities, private landowners, taxpayer-preserved open space, our drinking water, and significant natural and historic resources.
The proposed PennEast pipeline has been described as “a solution in search of a problem.” Data and analysis show the pipeline isn’t necessary to meet demand, reduce natural gas prices, or ensure a reliable, low-cost transition to a clean energy future.
Crossing the Delaware River and more than 4,300 acres of preserved lands in New Jersey, the pipeline will threaten significant natural and historic resources. It would damage scores of pristine, protected streams and jeopardize populations of threatened and endangered species such as long-tailed salamanders.
PennEast would bring an additional one billion cubic feet per day of fracked gas into Hunterdon and Mercer counties, adding to at least 1.3 billion cubic feet of excess capacity already serving New Jersey’s needs. The project would condemn nearly 150 private properties and public open spaces, all for a project that New Jersey’s utility consumer watchdog called “unneeded” and “unfair to ratepayers” who would foot the bill.
New Jersey currently has substantial excess pipeline capacity to meet its needs — even during extreme cold periods — and PennEast would add to this capacity unnecessarily. By creating a further glut in capacity, PennEast would increase costs to New Jersey consumers by $180 million to $280 million per year.
PennEast is opposed by every New Jersey municipality in its path, as well as many federal, state, and local elected officials. PennEast significantly overstated the number of total jobs it would create “by approximately two-thirds or more,” one study found.
A recent economic impact analysis presented to the New Jersey Conservation Foundation found that the number of jobs PennEast claims its pipeline would create was significantly overstated. The report also noted that “half or more” of the jobs would go to workers who live outside New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and only 10 permanent jobs would be created in New Jersey.
Despite the pipeline not being approved, PennEast developers are seizing land from New Jersey homeowners via eminent domain.
How does natural gas affect the environment? The proposed PennEast pipeline would have a devastating and
lasting effect on our land, water, forests and wildlife.
PennEast plans to cut costs on pipeline safety. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) determined that the federal pipeline safety statutes do not provide an adequate level of safety for the public. As a result, they have enacted far more stringent rules in the state to help prevent pipeline accidents, requiring that thicker Class 4 pipeline be used.
Preserved lands are often targeted for linear developments like pipelines, as they provide the least expensive routes.