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February 22, 2016Available files: mp3 wav png

Pipeline Opponents Ask NY to Deny Permit

Albany, NY – Environmentalists are asking the NY Department of Environmental Conservation to deny a water quality certificate for the construction of the Constitution gas pipeline. Comments by Wes Gillingham, program director for Catskill Mountainkeeper.

Intro: Opponents of a proposed gas pipeline want the state to stop the project by denying a water quality certificate. The thirty-inch pipeline is being built by the Constitution Pipeline Company, a joint venture of Williams Partners and Cabot Oil & Gas. It would run 124 miles from northern Pennsylvania to Schoharie County, New York, crossing under 277 bodies of water. According to Wes Gillingham with Catskill Mountainkeeper, the Department of Environmental Conservation has been highly critical of the construction plans.

  :09  "There’s a whole series of comments that DEC made to protect water and they were basically ignored by Cabot and Williams, and they put forward the same proposals."

Tag:  The company points out that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s environmental impact statement says the project's impact would be “less than significant” with the implementation of proposed mitigation measures. The DEC has until April to grant or deny the water quality certificate.

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Second Cut: Gillingham says the commission views pipelines as “public necessities,” thereby empowering companies to seize private land through eminent domain.

  :09  "And they’re taking New Yorkers’ and Pennsylvanian’s property that people have worked their lifetimes for, and they’re taking it away for their own corporate interest."

Tag:  120 landowners would lose property to the gas company for pipeline construction.

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Third Cut: Gillingham notes that this isn’t the only project. Gas and oil companies are building pipelines all over the country.

  :11  "They’re pushing really hard to lock us into an infrastructure for the next 30 to 50 years when we need to be moving away from greenhouse fossil fuels and relying much more heavily on renewables."

OPTIONAL REPORTER WRAP: uses first soundbite(s)
LEDE: Opponent of a proposed gas pipeline want the state to stop the project by denying it a water quality certificate. Andrea Sears reports.
 :51 Outcue...Andrea Sears reporting.

Note to Editors: Reach Gillingham at 845-439-1230. More at http://tinyurl.com/zzr7l9h