Proposed Pilgrim Pipelines Project: Why Kingston and the Town of Ulster Must Stay the Course.

By Rebecca Martin

15107480_617901495059186_7368560605403904128_nThe Proposed Pilgrim Pipelines Project: What Ulster County Citizens Need To Know and How Local Action Makes Global Impacts.  on Saturday, January 28, 2017 at Kingston City Hall located at 420 Broadway in Kingston NY from 1:00pm – 4:00pm (snow date January 29).  Guest panelists include Jeremy Cherson (Riverkeeper), Sue Rosenberg (Coalition Against Pilgrim Pipeline/CAPP) and Jen Metzger (Citizens For Local Power) and Andy Bicking (Scenic Hudson).    Brought to you by KingstonCitizens.org. This event will be filmed.

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Pilgrim Pipeline Holdings, LLC has proposed to construct two parallel pipelines each up to 20 inches in diameter that would run from Albany, NY to Linden, NJ along the NYS Thruway and through private property. In total, the pipelines would cover some 170 miles (including five laterals totaling nearly 13 miles), impacting 31 municipalities in Albany, Rensselaer, Greene, Ulster, Orange, and Rockland counties. The pipelines would receive an estimated 200,000 barrels per day of Bakken crude oil by way of rail into Albany, proposing to ship the crude oil in one mainline south and bring refined products back north.

The pipelines would run through several sections of the City of Kingston with even more pipelines crossings through the Town of Ulster (TOU).  It is also being proposed that one of the four pump stations (the only one that would be located near a residential area)  is to be placed only 200 feet away from a trailer park on Sawkill Road in the TOU impacting the Town of Kingston, too. 

Proponents have said that pipelines will reduce the need to transport crude oil using rails (bomb trains) or barges (in the case of the Anchorage project).   Kate Hudson of Riverkeeper disagrees.  “Having barges won’t prevent pipelines, and having pipelines won’t prevent barges, and transport by rail won’t prevent either of the others. None of these industries has made a compact with the others, saying, “If you move the oil, we’ll back out of the business.

In other words, more opportunities to move crude oil simply means more crude oil.  Not less.

The proposal has the potential for significant environmental impacts according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, stating that the Pilgrim Pipelines project “…would cross 257 streams and waterbodies (232 along mainline pipelines and 25 along laterals), including the Hudson River and multiple major and minor tributaries of the Hudson.  There are also 296 (9.2 linear miles) crossings of wetlands; including 25 crossings of NYSDEC protected freshwater wetlands (approximately 19 along mainline pipelines and 6 along laterals). Additionally, there will be four pump stations and 215 permanent access roads and temporary access roads at every mile.”

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