The Lebanon-Hanover pipeline is DEAD!

Some of the Upper Valley residents who made the trip to Concord for the PUC hearing on Sept 7, 2017, gathered in the hallway outside of the hearing room during a break

Dear Pipeline Activists,

In the same week that we’re absorbing the great news about the cancellation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the court-ordered shutdown of the Dakota Access Pipeline, we finally have a victory announcement here in the Upper Valley. The Lebanon-Hanover fracked gas pipeline is dead! Liberty Utilities failed to meet the minimal requirement to start construction on the project within two years of final approval of their franchise by the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission.

And you collectively stopped it. Your sustained opposition helped lead the Public Utilities Commission to impose a stiffer than usual requirement that Liberty Utilities register customers before beginning construction, a requirement they could not meet.

Furthermore, Liberty’s option on the land has lapsed; the owner of the property where their storage facility was planned is now seeking another buyer. That pipeline is dead!

Now we need to sharpen our focus on the Granite Bridge pipeline, another of Liberty’s misbegotten fracked gas projects, this one across southern NH. The proposal is before the PUC as docket DG 17-198. It’s tied to the PUC review of Liberty’s Least Cost Integrated Resource Plan in docket DG 17-152. As in Lebanon, Liberty’s inflated projection of the “need” for expanded gas infrastructure does not acknowledge that rising opposition to fracked gas and fossil fuel in general will turn away potential customers. We can make a difference.

Yours,
Jon Chaffee