NJ Sierra Club Opposes Pipeline Through Ramapo River Watershed

A new report by UNITE HERE seeks to investigate Ares Management’s $195 million commitment to the Pilgrim Pipeline project. The report outlines the increasing struggles the pipeline is facing including community opposition and political hurdles.

The 178-mile pipeline would deliver up to 200,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Albany, New York through New Jersey and the Bayway Refinery in Linden. Gasoline and heating oil would be sent back up to New York.

If approved, the pipeline is expected to travel through some of the state’s most environmentally-pristine areas, including the Highlands region and over the Ramapo River Aquifer, which provides thousands of residents with drinking water.

New York, for example is looking at a resolution for the Thruway to deny Pilgrim right-of-way. Even the Bayway refinery in Linden, New Jersey is not in support of this pipeline project, New Jersey Sierra Club officials said.

“This report shows that Pilgrim is a financial risk and an environmental risk. This pipeline is unneeded and unwanted but it’s being pushed by an investment company just to make a fast dollar,"said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. "Pilgrim Pipeline is just a front for an investment firm; it’s not even an oil company or a member of the American Petroleum Institute. We don’t know where they’re selling this oil too while they put our drinking water in danger. ConocoPhillips has said they don’t want this pipeline or its oil. Since it’s a limited liability company and management firm, there’s no one to go after in case something happens like what happened in Quebec when 47 people died from an oil train derailment.”

Read the report here.

Sierra Club officials said the pipeline would affect environmentally sensitive areas critical for drinking water supply. It would cut through public land and water supply intakes, and pass within view of the critical reservoirs. The pipeline is planned to run through the Ramapo River Watershed in New York and New Jersey. The pipeline would pass through or near the Buried Valley aquifer, tributaries to the Hudson River, the Hudson River, and the Catskill and Delaware aqueducts which provide drinking water to New York City.

In the Highlands, a spill could mean that water supply intakes on critical water supply rivers like the Passaic, Ramapo, and Pompton could be closed for weeks if not longer until a spill is cleaned up.

The flow in the Ramapo River is integral to the Ramapo Valley Well Field, which produces about 20 percent of Rockland County's water supply annually.

RELATED:

• Pilgrim Pipeline Applies for Route through Rockland
  
• DEC to Co-Lead Pilgrim Pipeline Review with Thruway Authority
  
• Coalition Launches New Offensive Against Pilgrim Pipeline
  
• County Executive's Corner: Limits on Water, Limits on Development
  

The Pilgrim Pipeline would carry North Dakota Bakken Shale oil. It is one of the most explosive types of oil in the world, Tittel said, dangerous because volatile compounds are left in, instead of taken out because it would cost more to remove.

Patch Editor Daniel Hubbard contributed to this report.