Contractors Begin Surveying Ramapo Valley Reservation For Oil Pipeline: Report

MAHWAH, N.J. - Surveying work at the Ramapo Valley Reservation will be conducted throughout the next several weeks as part of a plan to determine a route for the controversial Pilgrim Pipeline project, The Record reported.

The work will entail determining if there are any endangered animal habitats in the area, which could affect the company's application to state environmental regulators, the report said.

Pilgrim has proposed constructing a two-way, 178-mile underground pipeline that would deliver crude oil from Albany, N.Y. through New Jersey and to the Bayway Refinery in Linden. Gasoline and heating oil would be sent back up to New York.

The pipeline would come into New Jersey in Mahwah through the Highlands Preservations zone, the report said.

More than two dozen Bergen County municipalities, the county freeholder board, and the state Senate and Assembly have formally opposed the pipeline project. Mahwah and Oakland passed ordinances banning "unregulated interstate oil pipelines."