February 24, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dominic Rocco, PE, Program Manager<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regional Permit Coordination Office<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rachel Carson Office Building, 10th Flr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
400 Market Street <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harrisburg, PA 17101<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Berks Gas\nTruth submits these comments on behalf of its members and in support of the\naffected communities with whom it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The review and\ncomment period for the permits referenced above were announced in the Pennsylvania Bulletin<\/em>, 49 Pa.B. 713,\nFebruary 16, 2019. The notice is dated February 15, 2019 and indicates that\ncomments will be accepted for 30 days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At present, the Federal Energy\nRegulatory Commission is accepting comments until March 8 for proposed\nrerouting of the PennEast pipeline. It is unlikely that FERC will review all of\nthe comments received and announce to the public any determination on the\nproposed changes before your comment period ends. Therefore, the public is not\nafforded the opportunity to comment on water obstructions and encroachments nor\nerosion and sedimentation concerns on what may become the approved route of the\nPennEast pipeline. Further, because the system of notifying the public of\nopportunities to comment is so thoroughly inadequate at the federal level, it\nis likely that some commenters who respond to this notice will not be aware of\nthe proposed changes and will submit comments that are incomplete or no longer\nrelevant when FERC makes its determination. And because notification is\nsimilarly inadequate at the state level, it\u2019s likely that interested parties\nwill not know about this opportunity to comment at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n None of this should be happening,\nof course. Our overarching comment is that the scientific community has made it\nabundantly clear that we have 12 years to address climate change. Pipelines are\nbuilt to last far longer than we can afford to be using the natural gas that\nwould run through them. Your primary responsibility in matters such as this as\na regulatory agency in existence to serve the best interests of the public and\nthe environment is to make sure no more pipelines are built. Failure to do so\nshould be considered a crime against humanity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As it isn\u2019t, there are other\nreasons to halt the current permitting process having to do with the conflicting\ndeadlines detailed above. Your agency has little authority over\nfederally-regulated pipelines. The only power you have to protect the public is\nin your ability to reject permits on the basis of impacts to water that are\nalways present and always unacceptable. When you prematurely issue permits, as\nis so often the case, you cede your authority over any future changes made to\nthe pipeline\u2019s route. In this case, you are considering approving permits\nknowing that route changes could be coming. It\u2019s not a hypothetical. That is\nunacceptable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We call on you to reject PennEast\u2019s\nrequest for permits for the sake of future generations. Should you fail to do\nthat, we call on you, at minimum to halt the current review until FERC\u2019s\ndecision of the proposed route changes is known and resulting impacts to water\nare identified. At that point, we further call on you to make a more robust\neffort of notifying the public of its opportunity to comment and establish a comment\nperiod of a longer duration, at least sixty days, that further ensures that as\nmany interested parties as possible know about the comment period and have time\nto study and respond to the permit applications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Respectfully,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Karen Feridun, Founder<\/p>\n\n\n\n Berks Gas Truth<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February 24, 2019 Dominic Rocco, PE, Program Manager Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Regional Permit Coordination Office Rachel Carson Office Building, 10th Flr. 400 Market<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastruth.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastruth.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastruth.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastruth.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastruth.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gastruth.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2735,"href":"https:\/\/gastruth.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2734\/revisions\/2735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastruth.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastruth.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastruth.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}