The town of Brookfield is leading another challenge to a tentative state decision approving a natural gas expansion project that would increase the volume of gas flowing through Connecticut to the New York metropolitan area.
The town’s opposition — along with that of its backers in the environmental movement — is directed at an application by pipeline operator Iroquois Gas Transmission System to install two additional compressors at an existing station in Brookfield in order to increase gas flow by something less than 10 percent without having to expand the size of the pipeline.
Brookfield’s concern — there has been local opposition of some sort since the compressor station was built two decades ago — is whether the operation of the new, gas-fired compressors will produce emissions with unhealthy levels of airborne pollutants such as greenhouse gases and contributors to higher ozone levels.
The local fight is taking place amid a wider and increasingly political debate over what role — if any — natural gas has in the New England scheme of energy generation, where demand is forecast to increase and electric rates continue to rise. Gas advocates argue it is a relatively clean, plentiful and inexpensive fuel and pipeline access to New England should be expanded. Critics have written it off as an unhealthy, climate-damaging fossil fuel.
Iroquois touched off the latest local debate when it proposed expanding the compressor station, which is located in a crowded part of town and about 1,900 feet from a middle school.
Brookfield, with support from local and national environmental groups, lined up in opposition and demanded several months ago that the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection convene a hearing that could have killed the proposal.
DEEP denied the request for an adjudicatory hearing, but collected hundreds of comments from opponents at a public hearing. Last last month, after weighing the comments and hearing from Iroquois, the department revised the emissions restrictions it is proposing for permits that would allow the new compressors to operate.
Under the revisions, the state will more closely monitor emission of gases that contribute to higher ozone levels. At the same time, DEEP proposes to ease restrictions on emission of the greenhouse gas carbon monoxide.
DEEP said Iroquois expressed concern it could not deliver gas in sufficient quantities without easing of the carbon monoxide, or CO limit. Even with the upgrade, DEEP said in a memo that “the proposed upgrade is expected to reduce overall CO emissions from the facility compared with its current operations.”
Since its proposed easing of the carbon monoxide emission standard took place after the initial round of public comments, DEEP published notice of its more permissive limit and initiated a new, month-long public comment period that expired last week.
The environmental groups Save the Sound and the Sierra Club dispute the DEEP conclusions. In addition, Save the Sound has petitioned DEEP for an adjudicatory hearing. DEEP is expected to decide on such a hearing by October.
“These draft permits do not comply with the applicable regulations in several respects,” said Save the Sound lawyer Gabriel Slaughter. “In addition, they would allow not only for a massive increase in greenhouse gas emissions, but also increased emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), which will lead to higher ozone levels in nearby neighborhoods, harming the health of Brookfield residents and across Fairfield County.”
The state chapter of the Sierra Club said the project, if allowed to go forward by DEEP, would make the Brookfield compressor station “the largest in New England.”
“None of the methane gas from this expansion is intended for Connecticut, yet our Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has tentatively approved revised permits, asking us for a second time to breathe all the pollution and assume all the risk” said Samantha Dynowski, director the the Sierra Club Connecticut chapter.
Officials in Brookfield are taking a less antagonistic approach. First Selectman Stephen C. Dunn said he has spoken with Gov. Ned Lamont, about reaching some sort compromise with Iroquois. Lamont has been supportive of efforts to increase the availability of natural gas in New England, a subject on which political observers said he disagreed with former DEEP commissioner Katie Dykes, who recently resigned.
“The governor agreed with me when we met that our requests are not outrageous,” Dunn said. “We are not saying, ‘Don’t do it.’ We don’t want people freezing on Long Island. What we are asking for is reasonable, in my opinion and in the opinions of our residents.”
Dunn said Brookfield wants is more rigorous emissions testing.
“Iroquois is testing for pollutants at times of peak (compressor) efficiency.,” Dunn said. “But these motors don’t operate at peak efficiency 100 percent of the time. Sometimes the gas compressors will run at 20 percent of capacity. Sometimes at 80. It depends on demand down stream.”
And as importantly, Dunn said the town wants Iroquois to consider the replacement of natural gas-fired compressors with emission free electric compressors, something that he admits would increase the cost of the $275 million project by tens of millions of dollars. If spread access Iroquois customer base, Dunn said the increase is negligible.
The technology used to power electric gas compressors involves gas-powered fuel cells similar to one operated by the town of Colchester. The cells use an electrochemical process to produce electricity from natural gas without combustion.
A DEEP memo shows that it asked Iroquois to evaluate the use of electric compressors as part of the permit application process. The department said Iroquois estimated it would cost from $45 to $50 million in on-site and off-site infrastructure to install electric compressors and the process could take “up to 3 years.”
Save the Sound claims the added compressor capacity will generate an $500 million in new revenue a year for Iroquois by allowing it to deliver an additional 125 million cubic feet of gas daily from Canada to to its New York customers.
Iroquois did not respond to questions about its Brookfield generator plans.
Slaughter said Save the Sound believes electric compressors could be part of a compromise in the Brookfield debate.
State Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, a Brookfield Republican who attended the middle school located near the compressor station, said an agreement by Iroquois on electric compressors could reduce opposition.
“I think it is a workable solution,” he said. “It would reduce the emissions significantly and I think you would see objections significantly reduced. And it would be viewed as a sign of flexibility on the part of flexibility on part of Iroquois.
“That’s the problem. There hasn’t been any movement, there hasn’t been any compromise. Basically they put their application in as is. Concerns have been raised and nothing has been negotiated or even discussed.”
Harding said he supports adding more natural gas to the state and regional energy mix, but complained that, other than diverting a relatively small amount of gas to the southern part of the state, Iroquois provides little benefit to Connecticut.
“This is gong to supply almost no expansion of gas supply for people of Connecticut ,” he said. “Connecticut is just being used as a transportation vehicle to get down to New York City.”