Agency accepting comments on compressor station work
Dominion Transmission Inc. has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for approval to expand its Crayne Compression Station off Route 188 in Morgan Township.
The company filed an application with FERC in November on what it calls its Natrium to Market Project. FERC has issued a notice it intends to prepare an environmental assessment of the project and is now accepting comments from the public.
The project is designed to provide natural gas transportation services in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, creating increased access for natural gas production in the region to markets in the northeast and mid-Atlantic states. Natural gas will be transported from the company’s interconnect and new processing plant in Natrium, W.Va., to an interconnect between Dominion and Texas Eastern Transmission lines in Greene County.
“It’s an expansion of an existing compressor station,” said Chuck Penn, company spokesman. The project will help the company transport gas produced in the region to markets in the east.
The project will involve installing a new 7,700-horsepower gas turbine and compressor at the Crayne Compression Station and an upgraded measurement and regulation facility on company-owned property just southwest of the station.
According to the FERC notice, the disturbed areas for the new compressor will be within the Crayne Station. The measurement and regulation facility will require converting about 2.42 acres from open and forested land to industrial use.
Another part of the project will involve modification to equipment and installation of a line within the grounds of the existing J.B. Tonkin Compressor Station in Westmoreland County.
The company was required to receive approval from FERC because the project involves interstate transmission lines, which are under the agency’s jurisdiction, said Tamara Young-Allen, a FERC spokeswoman.
The commission is in the early stages of preparing an environmental assessment of the project; part of the process involves addressing concerns the public might have.
As part of the environmental assessessment, the agency will consider the impact of the project on geology and soils, land use, water resources, vegetation and wildlife, air quality, noise and public safety. It also will evaluate alternatives to lessen or avoid impacts.
FERC is accepting comments from the public focusing on potential environmental impacts and proposing reasonable alternatives or measures to avoid or lessen environmental impacts.
“We encourage the public to participate in the project,” Young-Allen said.
People can send written comments to Kimberly D. Bose, secretary, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street NE, Room 1A, Washington, D.C. 20426, or file comments electronically through the eComment feature or eFiling feature on the commission’s website, www.ferc.gov, under the link to Documents and Filings.
Dominion hopes to have the improvements in service by Nov. 1, 2014, Penn said.