Lambertville East Expansion (Lambertville)

(FERC docket number CP18-26)

Grassroots opposition to this project is lead by Lam­bertville Coalition Against PennEast Pipeline (CAPP).

On December 7, 2017, Texas Eastern Transmission, LP (Texas Eastern) filed an application pursuant to sections 7(b) and 7(c) of the Natural Gas Act (NGA) and Part 157 of the Commission’s regulations, requesting certificate and abandonment authorizations for its proposed Lam­bertville East Expansion Project. Texas Eastern requests authorization to replace two existing compressor units at its Lambertville Compressor Station in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. The project is designed to allow Texas Eastern to provide an additional 60,000 dekath­erms per day (Dth/d) (60 MMcfd) of firm transportation service from interconnections in Lambertville, New Jer­sey, and Marietta, Pennsylvania, to existing city gates in New Jersey in or near Union, Somerset, and Middlesex Counties in New Jersey. Specifically, it will connect the PennEast pipeline with the Texas Eastern pipeline and the Transco substation in East Amwell.

Additionally, the project is proposed to enable Texas Eastern to comply with new air emissions regulations in New Jersey. Texas Eastern claims this will result in a more than 90% decrease in potential nitrous oxide emis­sions from the turbines at the facility.

Texas Eastern proposes to expand its Lambertville Com­pressor Station in West Amwell Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. Specifically, Texas Eastern proposes to abandon and remove: two existing 5,100 horsepower (hp) Clark DC-990 natural gas-fired compressor units. To replace the abandoned facilities, Texas Eastern propos­es to install two new Solar Taurus 70 natural gas-fired compressor units, each rated at 8,600 hp.

The proposed Lambertville East Expansion Project will enable Texas Eastern to provide 60,000 Dth/d of in­cremental firm transportation service for PSEG and Elizabethtown, which have executed 15-year precedent agreements for the full capacity created by the project.

The Lambertville East expansion of gas capacity is un­necessary as it expects to receive its additional gas from PennEast, which has been shown to be unnecessary.

On November 16, 2018 FERC issued an ORDER ISSUING CERTIFICATE AND APPROVING ABANDONMENT

Paragraph 37 of the order (under section IV Environ­mental) stated: Regarding the EA’s (Environmental Assessment provided by applicant on July 24, 2018) air quality analysis, the New Jersey DEP clarifies that the EA misstated New Jersey’s Title V threshold values for volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides. Based on the New Jersey DEP’s comments, the applica­ble thresholds for a Title V permit are 25 tons per year for volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides. The EA indicated that Texas Eastern would need to ob­tain a modified Title V permit for the project. Under the corrected and lower applicable thresholds, Texas East­ern will still be required to obtain the modified permit; therefore, the EA’s findings remain unchanged.

Information on GHG and hazardous emissions con­tained in section B.8 of the EA states that total facility wide CO2 equivalent emissions for the project will be 182,265 tons per year, an increase of 109,681 tons per year. The EA does not show any CO2 or methane vol­umes. The total emissions data includes the effect of blowdowns and fugitive gas leaks.

Commissioner LaFleur issued a separate (concurring) opinion stating: Using a methodology developed by the Environmental Protection Agency to estimate the downstream GHG emissions from the project, and as­suming as an upper-bound estimate that all of the gas to be transported is eventually combusted, 60,000 Dth/d of natural gas service would result in the emis­sion of approximately 1.16 million metric tons of CO2e. The 1.16 million tons of GHG emissions from down­stream use would result in a 1 percent increase in GHG emissions from fossil fuel combustion in New Jersey and 0.02 percent increase nationally.

Based on the assumptions described in Appendix I of our report, it is estimated that total annual GHG emissions from the project would be as shown below.

  • Emissions from the combustion of the gas the com­pressor/pipeline would carry = 1.18 MMt (million metric tons) CO2
  • Total emissions from methane leaked across the gas supply chain (extraction to consumption) (Pennsyl­vania and New Jersey) = 0.85 MMt CO2e
  • Emissions from methane leaked during transpor­tation and consumption in New Jersey = 0.14 MMt CO2e
  • Total emissions from compressor/pipeline in New Jersey = 1.42 MMt CO2e