An anti-fossil fuel organization plans to hold an educational forum about the expansion of a gas pipeline that runs through New England at the Mansfield Town Hall on Wednesday, April 16 at 6 p.m.
The event will be held by the Stop Project Maple Coalition, a group made up of many climate change organizations focused on stopping the expansion of a gas pipeline that runs through New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. The expansion, called Project Maple, has been commissioned by the pipeline and energy company, Enbridge.
According to the Project Maple proposal, the expansion will take the old pipeline out and replace it with a “larger diameter” pipe. No concrete actions have been taken yet. Stop Project Maple is working to stop the building of this pipeline due to the negative impacts it could have on the environment and surrounding communities, such as the release of large amounts of methane into the atmosphere.
The forum event hopes to highlight this according to the Stop Project Maple media advisory. A presentation will be held, showing footage of the release of methane gas from a compressor station in Chaplin, Conn., that lies on the pipeline route.
Speakers will talk about the impacts of these expansions and the “broader dangers of methane on human health and climate change.” The forum will also include a discussion of how members of the community can take action.
Groups attending the event include Stop Project Maple Coalition, Sierra Club Connecticut and Windham/Willimantic National Association for the Advancement Colored People (NAACP).
Sena Wazer, a UConn alum and intern for Stop Project Maple, said she hopes that the event will leave people with a better understanding of how fossil fuels can impact local communities.
“I hope that people will come away from the event understanding the impact that fossil fuel infrastructure — including pipelines, compressor stations and metering and regulation stations — have on our local communities and why halting expansions of this infrastructure is critical to protect people’s health and stop fueling climate change,” Wazer said.
The pipeline runs right through the Mansfield area and has the potential to impact the UConn community, according to Wazer. She encouraged UConn students to attend the event.
“UConn students should attend the event because the pipeline that we will be discussing supplies gas to UConn and directly impacts both the Mansfield and UConn communities. UConn has also bought into past expansions of this same pipeline,” Wazer said.
According to UConn Today, “when the University buys natural gas, it must pay for both the fuel and transportation of the gas via the Algonquin pipeline, owned by Spectra Energy.” The Algonquin pipeline is the pipeline that Stop Project Maple is fighting.
This was in reference to UConn’s actions toward reducing energy costs by pursuing a new contract that would “stabilize natural gas transportation costs and reduce oil consumption,” according to UConn Today.
For more information, visit the Stop Project Maple website, and if interested in attending the forum, RSVP on the Sierra Club website.