(This story was updated Feb. 23 at 6:30 p.m. with new information from Public Service Commissioner June Tierney.)
[M]any who attended a packed meeting with utility regulators Wednesday night were looking for a way to block Vermont Gas Systems’ pipeline to Addison County. But officials offered little hope of that happening.
About 150 people filled the Montpelier High School auditorium for a forum that began with smiles, hugs and polite exchanges. As the evening wore on, interjections and booing from the audience occasionally punctuated the discussion between Public Service Department officials — including Commissioner June Tierney — and an audience overwhelmingly opposed to the pipeline the department has supported.
The 41-mile, $165 million natural gas pipeline is nearly complete, its permits are all in place, and all but one of the court cases it produced have been resolved, officials said. In other words, several DPS staffers said, the pipeline’s completion is inevitable.
Audience members repeatedly sought to know, nevertheless, how to prevent the pipeline from going into operation.
“We’re all hoping that with the changing of the guard, that things will change,” said Jane Palmer of Monkton, a longtime Vermont Gas pipeline gadfly. “We need you, Ms. Tierney … to do the right thing.”
After her remarks, Palmer gave Tierney a small green figurine: “It’s Kermit the Frog,” Palmer said, “because it really isn’t easy being green.”
Tierney and her staffers responded with mild manners and sometimes sympathy to a crowd that complained — at times vocally and simultaneously — of being shut out of a process characterized as unfairly favoring corporations.
“I see so many people here of good faith, and that are committed to public life, like is possible here in Vermont,” Tierney said. “We tell each other hard truths and assume each other is listening.”
Tierney said she could not promise any given outcome from the meeting other than “a genuinely searching process” and an open office.
In the more than three-hour meeting, audience members brought forward concerns about the Earth’s changing climate, and about alleged incidents that occurred during the pipeline’s construction, the safety of the pipeline, and the department’s response to these concerns.
“We are losing our winter,” said Jen Boucher, of Cabot. “We’ve had two weeks of cold, Vermont winter. If this isn’t enough to say, ‘Enough is enough’ with bringing this dirty fuel out of the ground, I don’t know what is.”
“Our state doesn’t allow fracked gas, and yet we are supporting this company to be piping it through our state, and no pipeline is completely safe,” Boucher said.
Tierney said her role is to act in good faith within the legal landscape the Legislature creates.
“I cannot tell you why our state permits fracked gas to be imported. All I can tell you is, that is what our law provides,” she said.
Tierney said her personal thoughts “on fracked gas flowing through a pipeline” are different from those she holds as a commissioner. But she said that “my views as a commissioner are those that I hold as a matter of duty. I do my very best to meet that duty with integrity, and that duty is necessarily bound by the laws of this great state.”
On Thursday after this story was first published, she sought to clarify what she had meant at the hearing. She said her remarks from Wednesday shouldn’t be taken as a revelation of her personal opinion on the pipeline, but rather simply a comment on the distinction between an official view and a private one, whatever that personal opinion might be.
A question from Heidi Wilson, of Plainfield — “How do we stop the project?” — prompted a similar answer to Tierney’s from Geoff Commons, the department’s acting director of public advocacy and a 26-year department veteran.
“People, citizens, everyone in this room… has the ability to vote,” Commons said. “That’s how you tell me what to do.”
“How to affect outcomes? Be involved on the local level, be involved on energy committees … talk to your representatives, and elect people to office who reflect your views,” he said.
The department’s planning and energy resources director, Ed McNamara, said the public process for the Vermont Gas pipeline is over.
“The decision’s been made” by the Public Service Board, McNamara said. “At this point, the process is essentially complete.”
“The question is,” he said, “how do we move forward?”
Someone in the back shouted, “Monkeywrench!” Another shouted, “Next time is too late!”
A self-described “refugee” from New Hampshire — where pipeline giant Kinder Morgan recently halted plans for a $3 billion natural gas line — said he could offer words of experience from that event.
“My first piece of advice is, you’re not going to get anywhere by talking to these people — nowhere,” said Sam Matthews, of Northfield, while gesturing toward Tierney and 10 members of her staff assembled at the front of the room. “The only thing that will work is to take away the money from the people who want to do this.”
“You have to persuade all the potential customers this is not what they want to do,” Matthews said. “If you can do that, you’ll stop it.”
The final segment of the Vermont Gas pipeline to be built is in Hinesburg, where opponents had sought to challenge the company’s easement through a public park. After Wednesday’s event, Vermont Gas spokeswoman Beth Parent said in an email that the company thanks Hinesburg and affected landowners. She also expressed support for the forum.
“We believe all voices should be heard, and tonight’s meeting was a good opportunity for the public to communicate freely and directly with our regulators,” Parent said.
“As it stands today, the project is almost complete,” she said. “We look forward to finishing this project this spring so we can bring an important energy choice to more Vermonters.”
The other DPS officials present were Telecommunications and Connectivity Division Director Jim Porter, Consumer Affairs Director Carol Flint, Engineering Division Director Bill Jordan, Public Advocacy Division special counsels Tim Duggan and Louise Porter, Finance and Economics Division Director Brian Winn, gas engineer G.C. Morris and Administrative Services Director Stacey Drinkwine.
CORRECTION: Jane Palmer was misidentified as Mary Martin in a previous version of this story.
