Legalectric

The Delaware Water Gap is one of the few National Park Service Wild and Scenic Rivers, and it’s in a struggle to stay that way.  I represented Stop the Lines before the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities administrative proceeding, which ended with a permit issued to PSEG.  Boooo-hisssss.

TODAY, a lawsuit was filed by National Parks Conservation Assoc.,  Appalachian Mountain Club, Appalachian Trail Conservancy, Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, New Jersey Highlands Coalition, New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, Rock the Earth, Sierra Club, Stop the Lines versus Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior and head of National Park Service, and Dennis Reidenbach as Northeast Regional Director of National Park Service:

Complaint – National Parks Conservation Assoc., et al. v. Salazar & Reidenbach

GOOD!  Serves them right, after caving to Obama’s transmission fast-tracking!

So what’s the scoop?  PSEG and PPL have targeted the Delaware Water Gap for a crossing of its Susquehanna-Roseland transmission line.  Here’s the NATIONAL PARK SERVICE PAGE for the project.

Here’s the full map:

Which is a small part of the bigger picture, part of line #1 on this Project Mountaineer, the transmission for coal scenario hatched at a top secret FERC meeting in 2005:

The alternatives evaluated by the National Park Service’s Delaware Water Gap in their EIS looks like this (click on map for larger version):

Here’s the link to the National Park Service’s Final EIS.  Inexplicably, National Park Service went from identifying the “no action alternative” as the Environmentally Preferred Alternative,  to a (rolling over) “STICK IT HERE!”  Oh, and a payoff of $30-40 million.  And then there’s “pre-approval” of the project by NPS…

Stay tuned!

“We make things work for you.”  Oh, ja,  sure, you betcha…

And then there’s Obama’s “fast tracking” and PSEG’s Susquehanna-Roseland transmission line is one of the seven transmission lines Obama picked to ram through.  Northwestern New Jersey is beautiful, a lot like the Minnesota “Range,” lots of rugged terrain, granite, and pine trees.  My clients, Stop the Lines, are based in Newton, NJ, and Fredon Township, which are just west of the New Jersey Highlands, and just east of the Delaware Water Gap.  It’s is such beautiful country.  Not for long if PSEG has anything to say about it.

Guess what they’re doing at 7 a.m. on a beautiful fall morning?  THEY’RE MOWING TREES DOWN:

This is a view off Verdona Road, a cul de sac off of Stillwater Road in Fredon Township.  They started on Tuesday, and were out there today at 7:00 a.m. mowing down everything down to dirt.  There was no notice to landowners and neighbors, just equipment out there clearcutting everything.

I’ve asked neighbors for more photos, will post if they arrive in the inbox.