Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware will be impacted by this project

Update from the FracTracker Alliance, January 4, 2021

After the Delaware Riverkeeper Network again appealed the controversial construction of a second dock for liquified natural gas (LNG) export in Gibbstown, New Jersey, its construction was re-approved in a Delaware River Basin Commission meeting on December 9th. The project’s opposers continue to raise concerns over the highly risky transportation of LNG and the impacts from LNG production at the New Fortress Energy processing plant in Wyalusing Township, Bradford County, PA.

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network has compiled data in cooperation with Fractracker Alliance to produce maps indicating two probable highway routes and two probable railway routes. Along each of these routes, a two-mile-wide hazard zone and population information are displayed. View the maps here.

After this disheartening development, Empower NJ led a coalition of 100 groups, including FracTracker and Delaware Riverkeeper Network, to stop the the LNG port construction. In a December 23rd letter to Governor Murphy, the coalition expressed their concern and disappointment at the DRBC’s approval of the LNG terminal. “This is just round one, we will fight and keep on fighting no matter what,” said New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel.

Delaware Riverkeeper Network plans to challenge the DRBC’s decision in federal court.

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See also: ‘Bomb Trains,’ a New Book on the Deadly, Ongoing Threat of Oil by Rail | DeSmog, Justin Mikulka, July 9, 2019

See also: Forecast for 2020: More Oil Trains, Fires, Spills, and the Rise of LNG by Rail, DeSmog, Justin Mikulka, January 7, 2020

The population density in the Delaware River valley is very high, and should be protected from risks of fires and explosions as an entire train could burn and explode.

From an Article by Marc Levy, Minneapolis Star Tribune (AP), August 18, 2020

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A coalition of six environmental advocacy groups asked a federal judge on Tuesday to block a new Trump administration rule to allow rail shipments of liquefied natural gas, a new front in the movement of energy products backed by both the natural gas and rail freight industries.

The groups will argue in court that, among other things, the administration did not adequately study the new rule to ensure that the activity it is authorizing is safe for workers, communities and the environment, said Jordan Luebkemann, a lawyer for Earthjustice, which is representing the groups court.

The rule, they said, would allow shipments of the flammable and odorless liquid known as LNG by rail in tanker cars that are untested and that cannot withstand high-speed impacts.

“Under this new rule, it’s only a matter of time before we see an explosion in a major population center,” said Emily Jeffers, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration declined comment. The agency published the rule late last month in the Federal Register and it takes effect in the coming days.

The rule comes amid foundering prices for natural gas in the U.S., as court and regulatory battles over pipeline projects have slowed movement of the nation’s world-leading gas production to markets.

The country’s natural gas boom has fueled massive growth in LNG exports, growing last year by more than 65 times the amount exported in 2015, according to federal figures.

The rule requires enhancements — including a thicker outer tank made of steel with a greater puncture resistance — to the approved tank car design that, for decades, has been approved for shipments of other flammable cryogenic materials, such as liquid ethylene and liquid ethane.

Previously, federal hazardous materials regulations allowed shipments of LNG by truck, but not by rail, except with a special permit.

Fifteen states also objected to the rule during the comment period. Those states included Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where the Trump administration issued a special permit in December to ship LNG by rail from northern Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale natural gas fields to a yet-to-be-built storage terminal at a former explosives plant in New Jersey, along the Delaware River near Philadelphia.

From there, the LNG is expected to be exported to foreign markets for electricity production, although the applicant, a subsidiary of New Fortress Energy, has told federal regulators that some domestic industrial use is possible.

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See also: Marcellus LNG “Bomb Trains” Approved for Travel thru Philadelphia to New Jersey — Federal officials will let LNG be shipped by rail to Gibbstown, N.J., port on Delaware River, Andrew Maykuth, Philadelphia Inquirer, December 9, 2019

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See also: The High Risks of Fires & Explosions on LNG Railroad Cars — Some 15 states oppose Trump plan to allow LNG shipments by rail, MARC LEVY, Associated Press, WSAV NBC News 3, January 14, 2020