Is pipeline really necessary?

Blue Mountain Resort submitted detailed plans for a proposed water park to the Lower Towamensing Township in approximately 2010 - years before the PennEast/UGI pipeline was announced. Are we to believe that the Blue Mountain Resort submitted plans for a water park with no hope of constructing the park until the PennEast/UGI pipeline came along? What a lucky coincidence that the pipeline has been proposed and that the route passes across Blue Mountain property!

Barbara Green, the CEO and president of the resort states in her letter in support of the pipeline that her customers are "environmentally conscious" and that without the PennEast/UGI pipeline, "… we would have needed over 2 miles of pipe, including crossing a stream and building a regulator station, which is a lot of environmental disruption for one customer." I wonder how her environmentally conscious customers will justify 118 miles of pipeline with 87 streams and 53 wetlands disrupted?

The Blue Mountain Resort is the only customer that will receive gas from the PennEast/UGI pipeline in Carbon County. None of the homeowners who are being forced with the threat of eminent domain to sell permanent easements to the pipeline company will receive gas from this pipeline.

Don't get me wrong. I am very happy if the water park project is actually completed and brings new jobs and new visitors to Carbon County but I have a hard time believing that the PennEast/UGI pipeline, which was not even on the horizon in 2010, has become essential to the project's success.

Linda Christman

Lehighton