FERC Struggling With Chesterfield – Bordentown Clean Water Act Challenge To “Southern Reliability Link” Pinelands Pipeline

FERC Grants extension to review request for rehearing

Towns challenged FERC approval prior to issuance of NJ DEP Water Quality Certificate

Yesterday, in what may be a significant legal development, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted an extension of time to review and decide on a challenge filed by Bordentown and Chesterfield townships filed on May 9:

In a highly significant legal development, Bordentown Township just filed a federal Clean Water Act based challenge to the proposed Transco gas pipeline through the Pinelands, known as the “Southern Reliability Link” (SRL).

The Towns’ challenge included the same Clean Water Act Water Quality Certificate requirement that the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) relied on to kill the proposed Constitution pipeline.

For now, I’ll leave it to he legal eagles to sort it all out.

But at a minimum, FERC needed more time and is being extremely careful in how they review and resolve this serious and potentially fatal challenge.

Here is the FERC decision: