Dear Friends of the Rancocas,
For your information, below is a letter written to the Pinelands Commission regarding the proposed gas pipeline to be built in the Pinelands in Cape May County by Mark Thomas on our behalf.
Also attached is his previous testimony given at a public meeting of the Pinelands Commission in October. In case you have not been able to keep up with this issue in your local news, it is noteworthy that four previous New Jersey Governors (Byrne, Kean, Florio, and Whitman - a nice bi-partisan group) have joined the rising voices against this issue by jointly signing a letter in opposition to the proposed pipe line. This was front page news in the Burlington County Times (www.burlingtoncountytimes.com) on December 19th.It is being reported that a final decision on this matter may be made on January 10th. I know we all appreciate Mark's efforts. Stay tuned!
~ Alison
Subject: Public Testimony, New Jersey Pinelands Commission and New Jersey Board of Public Utilities
To: info@njpines.state.nj.us
26 South Woods Road
New Lisbon, Burlington County
New Jersey 08063
Pinelands Forest Area District
To the Commission:
I write this letter on behalf of the Friends of the Rancocas, an association of about 75 people who own, in total, about 300 acres of pinelands just outside the Pinelands Village of New Lisbon. The land is within the Forest Area district of the Pinelands. We are your neighbors: our land lies just across the North Branch of the Rancocas Creek from your headquarters. Culturally and historically, the land where you work and meet has intimate ties with our land and our group.
I have attached testimony that I submitted on behalf of the Friends of the Rancocas at a meeting of the Pinelands Commission on October 23, 2013. While not a public hearing, the commissioners graciously permitted the attendees to speak to the proposed Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between (then) South Jersey Gas and the Pinelands Commission. I attach the file of comments I made at that time. I would like this email, as well as the attached file, to be included in the public testimony. This email includes additional comments from our group, due to data we have learned since October 23, 2013.
The natural gas inn the pipeline would be transported through it in a slurry of a mineral called "bentonite", Native to the high plains, this alkaline vehicle is related to shale and clay. Should there be a rupture of the pipeline within the Pinelands area, not only would natural gas be released, but the slurry of bentonite would pereate the soil, leading to leaching and alteration of soil pH and mineral composition. This would happen even if the pipeline is built along disturbed rights of way. The land of the Friends of the Rancocas is in a similar Forest Area as that where the pipeline is proposed to run. We already live with many underground pipes and lines, electric, sewer, naturalgas, due to our proximity to population centers.
The MOA between (now) NJBPU, if signed, would open the door to countless other proposals for similar lines across the pinelands. More basically,this MOA violates the rules of the Forest Areas of the New Jersey Pinelands, set by legislation in 1981. I point out that, initially, this MOA was to have been between a "public" utility and the NJPC.
The Friends of the Rancocas have been dedicated to protecting and preserving the ecology of the 300+ acres under our care since 1964. Our history dates back even farther, to about 1914. We expect the commissioners of the New Jersey Pinelands Commission to similarly uphold the standards they were created to protect, standards memorialized by state and national legislation. We urged you NOT to sign the Memoriandum of Agreement with New Jersey Board of Public Utilities in the matter of the natural gas pipeline proposed for the Forest Area of the Pinelands in Cape May County.
Respectfully, for the Friends of the Rancocas, and for the New Jersey Pinelands.
Mark S. Thomas, M.D
26 South Woods Road New Lisbon, New Jersey 08064
September 23, 2013
Public Testimony before the New Jersey Pinelands Commission
RE: Memorandum of Agreement between New Jersey Pinelands Commission and South Jersey Gas Request for Waiver of CMP Rules for Forest Area of New Jersey Pinelands, Upper Township, Cape May County
My name is Mark S. Thomas, M.D. I own property at 26 South Woods Road, Pemberton Township, Burlington County, New Jersey. I am a member of the Friends of the Rancocas.
The Friends of the Rancocas is a neighborhood organization of 75 landowners, over 300 acres, located in the Pinelands Forest Area of Pemberton Township. Its mission: to preserve and protect the ecological integrity of its land. At its 49th annual meeting, on Sunday, October 20th, we unanimously approved the drafting of the following statement:
The Friends of the Rancocas opposes the granting, by the New Jersey Pinelands Commission, to South Jersey Gas, of a waiver to the rules of the Comprehensive Management Plan(CMP). This would allow a pipeline, carrying natural gas, to be constructed through the Forest Area of the Pinelands in Upper Township, Cape May Couty, to the BL England plat, at Beesley’s Point.
No matter where a pipeline or power line is constructed, it permanently destroys natural infrastructure: tree canopy, understory, shrub layer, leaf litter, soil structure and water chemistry, including pH, and the movement of wildlife, from the microscopic to the large. The proposed South Jersey pipeline route would bisect three large, intact sections of the Forest Area in Upper Township, creating 6 smaller areas, with resulting fragmentation and degradation of ecological integrity and vigor.
If the New Jersey Pinelands Commission granted a waiver of the rules of the CMP to South Jersey Gas, it would set a precedent for other, similar requests to breach other areas of other Forest Areas in the Pinelands National Reserve, such as ours in Pemberton Township. This is especially troublesome in light of recent shifts in policy favoring natural gas production and off-shore sources of energy.
The Comprehensive Management Plan of the New Jersey Pinelands, in force since January, 1981, exists to preserve and protect the ecological integrity of the Pine Barrens. The South Jersey Gas request for the fore-mentioned waiver represents an example of the piece-meal attempt to degrade natural assets having local, regional, national, and international significance. We, the Friends of the Rancocas, strongly urge the Pinelands Commission to uphold the principles that underlie the wisdom of the CMP, and to reject the request.