A federal agency is ordering a company proposing a liquefied natural gas facility in Baltimore County to scrap plans to ship the finished product along stretches of the Baltimore Beltway shoulder.
Virginia-based AES Corp. has proposed sending natural gas from a plant at the Sparrows Point peninsula through an 85-mile pipeline via Harford County into southern Pennsylvania.
But officials at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ? the agency that will ultimately approve or deny the proposal ? said the proposed pipeline infringes on federal and state rights-of-way along Interstate 695.
Unless the company can negotiate an exemption from state policies ? and that appears unlikely ? AES must come up with a new route that would avoid the Beltway corridor, J.J. Mark Robinson, FERC?s director of energy projects, said in a letter to AES officials this week.
“Pipeline construction in the expressway rights-of-ways could result in temporary closure of shoulders and [will] have effect on motorists resulting in significant traffic delays,” Robinson wrote.
AES officials said the request will require a “fairly technical fix, if necessary” but expressed surprise the order came more than a year after they met with state highway authorities. The company designed the route adjacent to existing utility lines to avoid an impact on surrounding areas, it said, but has accommodated many requests for variations.
“State highway is saying, ?Can you look at an alternate route?? ” said project manager Kent Morton. “Well, yeah.”
But project opponents who say the proposed $400 million plant is too close to homes celebrated the development.
The project has drawn the ire of elected officials from virtually every level in addition to grassroots coalitions in Harford and Baltimore counties. Sen. Barbara Mikulski co-sponsored unsuccessful legislation to give states veto power over LNG facilities.
Mikulski called the development “good news.”
