Neighbors air concerns about planned compressor station

An existing Adelphia Gateway pipeline that has portions in West Rockhill is being converted from carrying oil to natural gas.

“To pump that product, they have to put compressors in,” Chris Derstine, chairman of the West Rockhill Township Planning Commission, said during his report at the June 20 West Rockhill Township Board of Supervisors meeting.

“They want to house these compressors in a pretty large building,” Derstine said.

The company came to the planning commission’s June meeting and gave information about

plans for an 8,000- to 10,000-square-foot building that will be 40 to 50 feet high, he said. The property is on Rich Hill Road, he said.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, not the township, has authority over whether the building is approved, he said.

“We really don’t have any teeth here to enforce our local zoning,” Derstine said.

The company said they will work with the township on plans to put in buffering with neighboring properties, he said.

“Other than that, they pretty much came in to tell us what they were going to do,” Derstine said.

“They don’t have to comply with your ordinances, but they have to work with you, cooperate with you and make their best effort to comply with your ordinances,” township Solicitor Mary Eberle said.

It’s up to the federal agency to decide on how that’s interpreted, though, she said.

“How it’s presented to FERC and what kind of relationship we develop with FERC to help us out is going to be an important factor,” Eberle said. “There’s going to be some diplomacy that’s required.”

Eberle said she would be writing a letter to FERC to relay concerns raised by the township and residents.

Tom Cuce, who lives next to the planned compressor station, said the plan would not meet the township zoning rules for impervious coverage, setbacks or water runoff.

“They’re trying to put this 10,000-square-foot building in an existing 1½ acre of land that is already mostly occupied by other facilities that they have there,” Cuce said.

The reason is because they already own the land and don’t want to buy additional land for the planned compressors, he said.

“They’re saving a ton of money and disregarding the safety of the people around them,” Cuce said.

The building will be within a few feet of his property line, he said.

“It’s just not the site to have this,” Cuce said.

“We have our families, we have our small farmlands back there, our animals. We don’t want to poison our air and our water and our way of living,” Christine Shelly, another neighbor, said. “I have a 6-year-old who’s out in the yard running around, and he’s the sixth generation living in this community, and now you want to poison it.”

Alison Schaffer, another of the neighbors, said the neighbors received only vague information from the company about the plans.

“They’re being underhanded and sneaky. They’re trying to get something over on the township, so I just hope that you’re all watching,” she said.

“Oh, we are,” board Chairman Jim Miller said.

Paul Roesener, another West Rockhill resident, said he owns land in Tioga County on which there are compressor stations on both sides, each of which is between one and two miles from his property.

“They’ve been functional for two years, and we haven’t had any noise, no smell,” Roesener said.

“I’m not defending them; I’m just saying we’re living it,” he said.

“Yeah, but you are one mile away. You’re not 10 feet away,” Cuce said. That could also be a smaller station than the one proposed for West Rockhill, he said.

Roesener said he was just suggesting that the neighbors visit an operating compressor station to see the effects.