What are we fussing about?

Those of in the Blasted Towns want to make sure you realize that our problem with the TPG pipeline is not because it’s in our backyard. It’s because it’s in ANYONE’s backyard.

I’m going to break this down into several parts because it is not a simple issue. I’ll just take one area here. This area of the Commonwealth, like the areas in New York State, is the headwaters of water supplies for good sized cities. In my town alone, we are in the watershed headwaters for the Souhegan River, a river that serves southern New Hampshire leading up to Milford, NH, and on to the Merrimack, which flows to the Atlantic Ocean. We also have the Millers River, which flows west to the Pioneer Valley, providing water to Massachusetts’ richest growing soil, and winds up in the Connecticut River. We also have the beginnings of the Nashua River, which flows through Fitchburg and eventually winds up in Nashua, joining with the Merrimack River. The Merrimack is the water source for Nashua, NH, Lowell, Lawrence and many other Massachusetts cities. So damaging the quality of the clean water up here will effect both the quality of the water that reaches these cities, and possibly the amounts.
Kinder Morgan states that they plan to bury the pipeline up to 30’ down, and intend to go UNDER the Connecticut River, which at one place is listed as being 99 feet deep. The problem with this idea – bedrock. The Northern Tier of Massachusetts is granite, as any farmer can tell you, or any contractor who tried to build a house. “The biggest crop in Mass is rocks,” is often heard in agricultural sectors. When you want to get down more than a foot in these areas you often meet resistance, as in ledge. The only answer for this level of resistance is blasting, across more than 100 miles of rocky ledge Massachusetts.

What happens when pipelines cross through wetlands and areas that hold ground water? According to the National Institutes of Health in their 2010 report on pipeline construction in China:
“Moreover, pipeline crossing construction is shown to not only compromise with the integrity of the physical and chemical nature of fish habitat, but also to affect biological habitat and fish behavior and physiology (Lévesque and Dubé 2007), which will result in the avoidance movement of fish, altered distribution of populations (Newcombe and Jensen 1996) and reduce population size and species. Acipenser schrencki, Huso dauricus andBrachymystax lenok are national key protected animals (level II), which are facing extinction. They distribute in Huma River National Protection Reserve, which is the only high latitude and cold temperate zone provincial nature reserve of aquatic wildlife in China. B. lenok and Lota lota are main protection objectives of Pangu River Nature Reserve, which is the national fish genetic resources reserve in the high latitude cold zone. The disturbance or damage of pipeline construction or operation on these fish species are significant loss of geography and ichthyology. Moreover, Huma River is an important breeding site of Oncorhynchus keta, which is the endemic species of Amur-Heilong River basin. The altered water quality may cause the reduced yield of O. keta. Although the disturbances of pipeline construction are not long-term, the altered fish population distribution and movement cannot be recovered in short-term.” (Effects of Pipeline Construction on Wetland Ecosystems: Russia–China Oil Pipeline Project (Mohe-Daqing Section; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3357716/)
Yes, this is in China, but it’s the same planet. This is an area dotted with trout streams, as well as clean water. Our rocks harbor not only precious drinking water, but also reservoirs of arsenic and radon, which can be released into the water, or the air, as those deposits are disturbed.

The proposed route for the TPG Northeast Expansion, or as it’s called now, the Northeast Energy Direct program, goes under and through numerous bodies of water. It also will cross through many miles of granite and other ledge which protect aquifers, reservoirs and existing wells. While the issue of need will be discussed later, please remember that of all the water in the WORLD, only 1% is drinkable, fresh water. With the rate we’re using water for carbonated beverages, fracking, cooling and other unnecessary projects, how long will our water hold out? Where will you get your water when the rivers that feed the reservoirs starts to contain contaminants such as we protect up here in These Blasted Towns.