DeRuyter Pipeline

This article is part of the Global Fossil Infrastructure Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor and the Center for Media and Democracy.

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DeRuyter Pipeline is a natural gas pipeline in New York.

Location

The pipeline runs from Norwich, New York to Oneonta, New York.

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Project Details

• Owner: Iberdrola
• Capacity:
• Length: 40.2 kilometers / 25 miles
• Status: Proposed
• Start Year: 1953

Background

New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG), a subsidiary of Iberdrola, is planning to replace an aging 8-inch-diameter natural gas pipeline stretching from Norwich to Oneonta with a new 10-inch pipeline by 2020, according to documents filed with the state Public Service Commission. The price tag on the project is $49.5 million. NYSEG has a pending application with state utility regulators for rate increases for both its gas and electricity customers. If the DeRuyter line running from Norwich to Oneonta is replaced by the bigger pipe, it would increase capacity on that run by an estimated 38 percent, provided the Norwich compressor station remains in operation.

Otsego Now, the economic development umbrella agency that includes the Otsego County Industrial Development Authority, has encouraged NYSEG to get gas from the proposed Constitution Pipeline. That line would carry enough gas to power an estimated 3 million homes a day in the Northeast, and would bring shale gas extracted from northeastern Pennsylvania to two existing pipelines in the Schoharie County town of Wright. But NYSEG advised the PSC that it is focused on the plan to replace the existing 25-mile stretch of the DeRuyter pipeline bringing gas to Oneonta. The company noted that the segment of pipeline in question faces "threats" of external corrosion as well as "material/weld/joint failure" and is "undersized." The weld seam and construction practices used when the DeRuyter pipeline was installed in 1953 "do not meet present day API (American Petroleum Institute) welding standards, construction records and documentation were not required or maintained from the time of construction and general construction practices of the period do not meet present-day regulatory requirements," NYSEG said in its submission last May. The company acknowledged that the gas supply from the DeRuyter line "could be supported by interconnect to the Constitution Pipeline." However, the Constitution project has been held up by "ongoing delays and complications" from regulatory reviews, and alternatives involving the Constitution project have been "eliminated," NYSEG said in its filing. It added, however: "Should Constitution be approved, the direct replacement of DeRuyter could be modified." Anne Marie Garti, an environmental lawyer and Stop the Pipeline organizer, challenged those assertions, stating, "You don't need a huge transmission line for local distribution." Stop the Pipeline and a bevy of other environmental groups have been pressuring the state Department of Environmental Conservation to deny Constitution Pipeline's applications for water permits needed by he $700 million project.