Jefferson residents organize to oppose natural gas station

Now, a coalition of Jefferson residents is working to generate its own resistance to Dominion in hopes that the company will once again re-evaluate the station’s location.

More than 200 residents turned out to discuss preliminary details of the proposal with Dominion representatives on May 7 at Valley Elementary School.

And by the weekend, a Jefferson citizens’ group committee name will be chosen and a Web site for the group will go online, according to Jennifer Booth of Jefferson, one of the group’s main organizers and leaders.

Booth said the committee will look to the model and methods that Citizens for the Preservation of Middletown Valley used to fight the project.

‘‘We value and we are benefiting from the hard work that CPMV has done,” she said. ‘‘We look forward to a continued working relationship and alliance in helping to preserve both of our communities against the building of such a facility.”

Bob Fulton, a Dominion spokesman, said the station is necessary to keep up with increasing natural gas usage countrywide.

‘‘The need is going to increase over the next 20 years by anywhere between 30 and 40 percent,” he said. ‘‘It’s a clean-burning fuel — certainly less polluting; it’s been the fuel of choice for power generation because of its clean-burning characteristics, so that’s why we’re going to see a difference.”

Dominion owns the gas line the station will serve, but not the gas in it. Dominion’s customers, including local distributors such as Washington Gas, use the line to transmit their gas. The line runs from Leesburg, Va., to Perulack, Pa.

The people of Jefferson, like the people of Middletown before them, have a list of concerns about the proposed location, many of which were aired at the May 7 meeting.

They are now beginning to take their concerns to the officials and representatives who will make the decisions about the transmission station’s construction.

‘‘Certainly the light, noise, air, and ground water pollution issues as well as possible accident⁄explosion issues and the resources to respond to them are just as relevant if not moreso to the citizens of Jefferson as they are to the cows near the original [Middletown] site,” wrote Susan Kaltenbaugh of Jefferson in a May 5 letter to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Secretary Kimberly D. Bose.

The commission has the final vote on whether or not a project moves forward.

According to Fulton, the company takes steps to address residents’ concerns.

‘‘According to regulation, we cannot exceed 55 decibels —which is equivalent to a normal conversation — at our fence line, and we employ the latest technology in safety equipment, detectors and such,” he said. ‘‘So, in case of an anomaly, we shut our stations down. So these facilities are safe and reliable, and we have detection systems set up and security systems.”

The Jefferson site is bounded by Jefferson Pike, U.S. Route 340 and Gene Hemp Road. The footprint of the new facility will be 11 acres, and the cost is estimated to be $55 million.

Construction is slated to begin in 2012, and should be complete by 2014. Currently, there is a measuring and regulating facility of the property, which measures and then regulates gas pressure as it passes from one line to another.

The planned project would involve the construction of a building comparable to a ‘‘medium-sized barn,” and a one-story office and warehouse building, Fulton said.

The larger building will house a 15,000-horsepower turbine engine used to compress and move gas along the pipelines. According to Fulton, it would only be used at peak times, such as extreme hot or cold days, when increased heating and air conditioning use requires higher amounts of natural gas.

Susan Hanson of Jefferson attended the May 7 meeting, and she said she is concerned about the potential impact the construction project could have on the intercommunity relations of Jefferson and Middletown.

‘‘Wherever they build this thing, I hope that they don’t pit community against community, and I hope that wherever they build this thing, I hope they come up with a plan that puts safety first,” she said.

As the process moves forward, Fulton said he plans to work with and gather from citizens’ groups and officials, and that the company feels that community input is important when choosing a site.

‘‘It’s important to keep that dialogue going to listen to [residents’] concerns,” he said. ‘‘And also to inform them of what our plans are and what we’re proposing for that location.”