Liberty Gas Utilities Public Forum-September 29, 2015

-Hopefully more information in addition to what was published in the Valley News.

First, I want to say that I do not like the idea of burning gas or oil from fracking. It is a nasty destructive process that will have long term effects on our environment. Some or all of the gas used at the proposed Liberty Gas and Valley Green facilities will be from fracked gas. The Liberty Utilities facility will be getting gas from the Marcellus gas fields in Pennsylvania, by ship at the Everett Distragas Natural Gas terminal, or from their available sources in Canada. Liberty Utilities supplies most of the electrical service in the Upper Valley after they purchased Granite State Electric in 2012. Their parent company is actually a Canadian company called Alonquinn Power and Utilities that is located near Toronto and is exchanged on the Toronto Stock exchange.

The proposed facility will be located just north of the Lebanon landfill at the Moulton gravel pit (384-386 Plainfield Road). I asked how much fuel will be stored on site, and Bill Clark the Development Manager, kind of squirted around my question. Valley Green is proposing up to 220,000 gallons of gas stored in 60,000 gallon tanks. When I mentioned a few hundred thousand gallons, Clark just chuckled. A gas facility is also required to store at least seven days worth of gas on site. This will be in the form of Liquid Natural gas (LNG) and not Compressed Natural Gas because LNG is much easier to store above ground. I also asked how many truck deliveries will there be per day. Clark replied that there will be 1-6 deliveries depending upon the time of year. This to me seems to be a very small number. We all know how congested Route 12A can be.

From what I can see, the project has about 5 building phases. The first two phases could only take a year or two, but the completion of of gas lines all the way to Hanover could take upwards of twenty years. From what I understood, if you are within 100’ of a major trunk line you could get connected. They are projecting about 45% of Lebanon residents could get gas service.

• Phase One-Build tank facility and pipe service to the 12A corridor.
• Phase Two-The area around Seminary Hill.
• Phase Three-The Lebanon downtown area.
• Phase Four-The lower Rt120 corridor and Etna Road.
• Phase Five-The Hospital and Hanover.

The estimated cost of phase one and two is approximately 25 million dollars. The facility will be located next to the landfill, so there is the “potential” to utilize the methane gas produced by the landfill. Clark made some “rough” estimates on how much gas could be captured. The only data he had was from public records of another company looking into capturing the gas. Clark estimates about 200,000 decimeters (I could be wrong with form of measurement) or about 15-20% of the total needs of the system. It was not explained how the gas is collected or what kind of equipment or capital investment is required. Also, the information he was referring to could have included the idea of getting gas from future food waste (anaerobic digestion).

The end of the presentation was left open for questions and answers. There were maybe 50 people in attendance. A good portion of the audience’s questions were geared towards the negative impact of methane pollution and methane leaking from the proposed facility and piping. There was also a large concern about where the gas comes from (fracking). I got the feeling that a few were looking for an “emotional” response from the panel. They also wanted the emission data presented and future data to show methane leakage and not just CO2 emissions. I am not a scientist, but I think this would be hard to do.

My input…the problem here is not Liberty Utilities. They are just a company providing a delivery service and are trying to make a profit like any other company. There really is not much we can do as Lebanon residents to stop or control this whole process. We can of course make comments to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), but if their petition is granted, they have every right to build their facility within the guidelines of zoning and state and federal regulations. Unfortunately, there is very little public involvement (obvious by the small turn-out). Our zoning regulations are ancient (there has been no major changes since the mid 1970’s) and there is no real “local” control in New Hampshire.

Here are some other questions that were asked:

• How do you check for leaks? The ¾”-4” polyethylene tubing which will be buried 3-4’ below grade on public right of ways will be checked with vehicles or on foot with “sniffers” that can detect gas particles.
• What if NH bans the import of fracked gas? They would purchase gas from suppliers that are not selling fracked gas.
• Will there be more local jobs? Yes, I cannot remember how many, but there will need to be an increase in personnel at their Miracle Mile location.
• Will the town receive tax revenue? Yes, all the pipes and new facility will produce tax revenue for the town.
• Who would responsible for equipment changes within the home? The customer is responsible for any cost within the home. There might be some financial programs available. (I would estimate about $1,200 to convert from an oil burner to a gas burner).

In my opinion, Liberty Utilities is the lesser of the two evils. The location is better. They are not new to this business. I have not heard of any “bad” practices with environmental concerns. They are very willing to provide service to the residential market. The potential to use the landfill gas is very appealing and they have more options from where they can purchase their fuel.