NJ’s Decision on Williams Pipeline Pushed Back a Month

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey environmental regulators will have another month to decide whether to grant key permits to a company seeking to build a natural gas pipeline through New Jersey and New York.

(photo: Williams)

The state Department of Environmental Protection says Oklahoma-based Williams Companies asked for a monthlong extension in considering their applications for waterfront development and coastal land use permits.

The deadline had been Wednesday.

The new deadline for those two permit decisions is Oct. 25.

The DEP says a third permit, involving flood hazards, is due Oct. 29, and one for freshwater wetlands work, has no statutory deadline.

Williams says the pipeline is needed to ensure adequate heating and energy supplies to New York and Long Island, and that it can be built safely with minimal environmental disruption, which environmentalists dispute.

Separately, Williams announced the completion earlier this month of another natural gas project in the U.S Northeast. The Rivervale South to Market project – an expansion of the Transco natural gas pipeline system – provides 190,000 dekatherms of firm natural gas serviceby uprating 10.3 miles of existing Transco pipeline.

With this expansion, the Transco pipeline’s system-design capacity is increased to 17.2 million dekatherms per day.