FERC has pushed back the deadline until March 5 for Millennium Pipeline Co. LP to reach an agreement with the residents and political officials of Mount Vernon, NY, over the routing for the last two miles of the proposed 425-mile natural gas pipeline through the town.

Both sides have been “negotiating diligently” for nearly two months now, but “no agreement on the routing issue has yet been reached,” Millennium told the Commission in a Feb. 19 letter, in which it sought the 15-day extension. Millennium said it “remains hopeful” that an agreement is imminent, and noted that the additional 15 days would give the two sides the opportunity to explore “possible consensus solutions.”

At issue is the routing of the pipeline to an interconnect with Consolidated Edison Co. of New York’s high-pressure line in Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon elected officials and residents are opposed to the Millennium-favored route through their city because, as one source told NGI at the start of the negotiations, “basically the pipeline would be running down their Main Street.”

In late December, FERC awarded conditional approval to Millennium to build all but the last two miles of the U.S. leg of the pipeline that would run through Mount Vernon. It gave both sides 60 days in which to reach a compromise on a route for the pipeline to the ConEd line. At the end of the negotiations, FERC said it will issue a final order to authorize the construction of the Millennium project, and the specific route to the termination point. If Mount Vernon and Millennium are unable to settle the routing issue, the Commission said it will decide it [CP98-150].

The Millennium pipeline, which has been plagued by regulatory setbacks for years, would bring about 700 MMcf/d of natural gas from Canada under Lake Erie to the New York metropolitan area. The primary sponsors of the U.S. portion of the pipeline are Columbia Gas Transmission and MCN Energy Group. The sponsors of the Canadian leg, TransCanada PipeLines and St. Clair Pipeline Ltd., withdrew their applications last August due to continued regulatory delays on the U.S. side. The application to build the U.S. leg has been pending at FERC since 1998.

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