Towns Vote to Fight Pipeline

Four New Hampshire towns near Keene are opposing plans to build a fracked gas pipeline through their towns. The towns border Massachusetts. At annual town meeting day votes on March 10 and March 11, residents of Fitzwilliam, Rindge, Troy and Winchester voted to direct their towns' select boards to lobby state and federal regulators to fight the proposal by Texas-based Kinder Morgan Corporation. The pipeline would carry gas that is mined using a process called “fracking,” which poisons drinking water.

Dana Pinney has lived in southwest New Hampshire for all of his 63 years. “I'm blue collar,” he told the Valley Post in December 2014. Pinney is fighting the pipeline. “We should be investing in energy efficiency and solar, not gas,” he said.

Fracked gas is a fossil fuel. It causes climate change, which the world's leading scientists say is a major threat to earth's ability to support human life.

The pipeline would pass near Greenfield and Brattleboro. It would run from near Albany, New York to near Boston.

Pinney lives in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, near Keene and Massachusetts. He said he has spoken out against the pipeline at his town's select board meetings. “I'm going to keep speaking out,” he said.

Coni Porter has lived in Fitzwilliam for 26 years. “Kinder Morgan is offering lower property taxes,” she said. “But can you put a price on nature? I have been hearing from Fitzwilliam people who I never though would say this; they're saying, 'If we stand in front of the bulldozers they won't build it.'”

Porter said the first step is to lobby state legislators from the towns that the pipeline would cross. She spoke with the Valley Post in December 2014.

In December 2014 in Fitzwilliam, more than 50 people attended a rally at the town common against the pipeline. The rally organizers can be reached by sending an e-mail from:

www.NHpipelineAwareness.org

There is no phone number at that site, but the site says it's affiliated with another group which does have a phone number:

www.NoFrackedGasInMass.org/contact-us

The New Hampshire group's web site also links to a frequently updated Facebook page about the fight to stop the pipeline.

The Kinder Morgan corporation originally wanted the pipeline to run south of Fitzwilliam, in Massachusetts, but activists in Massachusetts appear to have succeeded in keeping the pipeline out of that part of their state.

Diane Hewitt lives in Groton, Massachusetts. She was part of the successful effort to keep the pipeline out of her town. “We seem to have kept it out of our backyard,” she told the Valley Post in Dember 2014. “But it doesn't feel like a victory. The goal is to stop the pipeline, not just move it.”

Fracked gas is mined by Exxon Mobil corporation. The CEO of Exxon Mobil makes about $40 million a year. Exxon Mobil received $6.2 billion in subsidies from taxpayers in the USA between 2010 and 2012. That's according to www.AmericansForTaxFairness.org.

Fitzwilliam is home to about 2,400 people. Rindge's population is about 6,000. Troy is home to around 2,100 people. Winchester has roughly 4,300 residents.

Comments

Richmond , second town in NH

Richmond , second town in NH along the proposed pipeline route
at Town Meeting yesterday joined the other
Mentioned towns in opposing the pipeline

Lowered taxes

Thank you for covering this important and under-covered topic. I'd just add the possibility that the small amount of money these towns would get won't offset lower housing & property values. Would you raise your family in the "incineration zone"?

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