IWC Approves Environmental Permit For Gas Pipeline

By Andrew Gorosko

Inlands Wetlands Commission (IWC) members this week unanimously approved a wetlands/watercourses protection permit for a local manufacturing firm’s proposal to extend a high-pressure natural gas pipeline to its industrial complex at 11 Edmond Road.

IWC members on April 25 approved the application from Advanced Fusion Systems, LLC, (AFS) to extend a four-inch-diameter pipeline from the Iroquois Gas Transmission System’s cross-country pipeline to its factory.

The pipeline extension project also would require certain state and federal approvals concerning energy regulation, environmental protection, and transportation. The pipeline project does not require town Planning and Zoning Commission review.

William Joyce, who is AFS’s chief executive officer, told IWC members that directional drilling would be used to create a horizontal bore hole under Interstate 84 and under Tom Brook for the gas pipeline. That horizontal boring would pass under I-84 about 70 feet west of the Schoolhouse Hill Road overpass. Conventional trenching would be used to bury the pipeline along Edmond Road.

In an earlier proposal, AFS had planned to use directional drilling only under I-84, but not below the streambed of Tom Brook. Under that plan, conventional trenching would have been done directly in the streambed.

Mr Joyce told IWC members that current plans for horizontal drilling beneath the stream would keep the construction work’s earthen disturbance about 35 feet away from the stream. However, because that 35-foot separation distance falls within the 100-foot-wide “upland review area” adjacent to the stream, the construction project still requires IWC approval.

The minimum depth for such buried pipeline is four feet, but the pipeline would likely be buried much deeper than that below Tom Brook, Mr Joyce said.

The natural gas would be sent to the AFS factory through a steel pipeline which has a protective plastic jacket on it. The pipeline would employ a cathodic anticorrosion mechanism and have a safety valve in place at the point where it extends from the Iroquois cross-country pipeline.

“I think my questions have been answered,” said IWC Chairman Anne Peters after reviewing the pipeline proposal.

Ruth Parkins, an Iroquois spokeswoman, said April 26 that Iroquois officials have been in communication with Mr Joyce regarding supplying natural gas for the pipeline project, but have not done any design work and have not reached any formal agreement on supplying gas to AFS.

In their April 25 approval, IWC members set some conditions on granting the permit.

Erosion and sedimentation controls must be installed as illustrated on the construction plans and where deemed necessary by the town conservation official before construction starts and the controls must be maintained, as needed.

The conservation official must be notified before construction starts and when construction ends.

The conservation official must inspect and approve the marked physical limits of earthen disturbance on the site before activity occurs.

Any changes in construction plans for the project pertaining to the wetlands/watercourses permit would require a reapplication to the IWC.

The gas line extension project would include the construction of a 2,100-square-foot gas metering/gas decompression building at the AFS site, according to the application.

During the past several months, the Connecticut Light & Power Company (CL&P) in a $9 million project has been installing additional electrical service to the AFS site for the firm’s manufacturing.

In September 2010, AFS paid $6.3 million to buy the industrial building at 11 Edmond Road, which formerly was occupied by Pitney-Bowes, Inc.

In an expanded industrial plant, AFS would manufacture high-speed electrical switching devices for very high electrical voltages. AFS’s products would be used to protect the nation’s electrical power supply grid in the event of disruptive solar storms or terrorist attacks. Some of the firm’s work would be performed for the US Department of Defense.

AFS also would make environmental cleanup equipment, sterilization gear, and x-ray laser microlithography equipment. AFS would manufacture environmental pollution remediation equipment that is used to clean up contamination problems stemming from the presence of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxin.