Daniel M. Adamson, director of the office of energy projects atthe Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, sent a letter to ColumbiaEnergy’s David Pentzein this week requesting a status report on the$650 million Millennium Pipeline project in light of all the recentcriticism from New York regulators and the impact of theColumbia-NiSource merger. The 442-mile project would bring about714 MMcf/d of gas from Canada under Lake Erie to the New Yorkmetropolitan area.

“I am concerned about the opposition from New York State to theproposed construction along the Consolidated Edison Company of NewYork (Con Edison) electric transmission right-of-way in WestchesterCounty, NY, and opposition from the National Marine FisheriesService (NMFS) to the proposed crossing of the Hudson River inHaverstraw Bay,” said Adamson. “Further, a merger of the ColumbiaEnergy Group with NiSource Inc. was recently announced and we areinterested in the plans for the continued development of theproject.”

Adamson noted that the New York Public Service Commission iscalling for a rejection of the pipeline routing near Con Edison’smajor transmission right of way (See Daily GPI, Jan. 26). The PSC filed an emergency motionin January urging the Commission to hold off on approving the pipelineuntil an alternate route is found.

The New York State Reliability Council also attacked the project’srouting along the Con Edison right of way, noting in filed commentswith FERC that the 345 kV transmission corridor “happens to be themost important and most critical electric power interconnectionbetween the major load center of New York city and the rest of theeastern interconnection” (see Daily GPI, March 10). It has six 345 kV high voltagetransmission lines and a total thermal capacity of 5,000 MW.

In addition, the NMFS said the Haverstraw Bay crossing proposedby Millennium would seriously damage an ecologically sensitivearea, and the construction methods proposed would violate the NewYork Coastal Management program.

Earlier this month during a conference call on the proposedColumbia-NiSource merger, NiSource CEO Gary Neale stated hisconcerns about the project’s route and questioned the need for sucha major pipeline when NiSource’s own Crossroads Pipeline couldserve growing demand in the Northeast with a much small expansionproject and at a fraction of the cost of Millennium (see Daily GPI,March 6).

Adamson told Millennium to provide a response within 20 days.”Millennium needs to document its strategies for resolving theimpasse… You must evaluate and provide evidence that the PSCs,NYSRC’s and NMFS’s issues can be resolved so that we can completeour final environmental impact statement and be in a position tomake clear recommendations to the Commission on how to proceed,” hesaid, adding FERC would be happy to schedule a technical conferenceand invite all concerned parties to address these issues.

Columbia spokesman Karl Brock said the company is preparing aresponse and intends to assure FERC that these issues will beresolved. Brock said the project remains on track despite beingdelayed significantly. “First of all we remain fully committed todeveloping the Millennium project. We are confident that we will beable to resolve what seems to be FERC’s three concerns about theproject,” he said, referring to the two routing issues and theimpact of the merger. “We’ve had a number of meetings with theNYPSC and that discussion is ongoing… We are exploringalternatives in routing and construction design that would addressthe Public Service Commission’s concerns as well as make theproject viable.

“Millennium remains the most viable and promising prospect forgetting new gas supplies to the Northeast, which is something that[has come up recently] in testimony before Congress,” Brock noted.”Representatives of the State of New York have advocatedconstruction of new pipelines as part of the solution to addressthe concerns about the high price of energy and the availability ofenergy in that region. So the need is there. It’s just a matter ofironing out the remaining issues.”

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