Facing huge opposition to a major natural gas pipeline in Massachusetts, Kinder Morgan is considering whether to run much of the route through southern New Hampshire.

The east-west power line would pass through Wilton and Milford, travel next to Souhegan High School and cross the Merrimack River into Litchfield.

That proposal, called the New Hampshire Powerline Alternative, is one of several possible changes to the company’s original plan included in a report filed earlier this month with the federal agency that approves gas pipelines. A less drastic alternative would keep the main 36-inch buried transmission pipeline in Massachusetts, but would shift a New Hampshire connection slightly west from Hollis to Brookline.

Under that alternative, instead of running from Pepperell, Mass., through Hollis, the 12-inch-diameter buried connector pipeline would head north from Townsend, Mass., and travel along Route 13 through Brookline before cutting across southern Milford, mostly using a power line right of way, to Route 101A. This is virtually identical to a proposal put forward by the Beaver Brook Association last summer.

Kinder Morgan isn’t saying which of these, or several other alternatives, it prefers. The decision will be up to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“The routes are under evaluation,” said Richard Wheatley, director of corporate communications for Kinder Morgan. “I can’t characterize them further other than to tell you that the routes have been examined. Some appear to be more feasible than others because of differences, basically, in the amount of disturbance that might be created and also the impact, potentially, to different densities of population.”

These proposals, as well as several other alternatives for the Northeast Direct Energy Project, are included in a draft report titled “Resource Report 10 Alternatives” filed last week with FERC. The report includes a number of conflicting alternatives, including some that would shift the pipeline farther south in New Hampshire, away from Greater Nashua.

The descriptions of the alternatives are sometimes vague. It isn’t clear, for example, whether the New Hampshire Powerline Alternative would involve moving the main transmission pipeline out of Massachusetts or merely building a parallel pipeline across southern New Hampshire, although the latter possibility seems too expensive and difficult.

It appears the Powerline Alternative would enter New Hampshire from Massachusetts not far from the Vermont border, then follow a right of way owned by Public Service of New Hampshire and used for a 345-kilovolt transmission power line. That approach would make life much easier for Kinder Morgan, since it would minimize the number of property owners whose permission would be needed to build a line and thus minimize the sort of opposition that has been seen in Hollis.

In Greater Nashua, the PSNH right of way runs through New Ipswich and Mason; cuts through southern Milford; crosses Route 101A and the Souhegan River; passes next to Souhegan High; and crosses the Merrimack River near Middlesex Road in Merrimack, south of the bridge leading to the Manchester airport. It then cuts through Litchfield and Londonderry and intersects Interstate 93, where there are existing natural gas transmission pipelines.

The alternative for the smaller New Hampshire connection, which Kinder Morgan called the West Nashua Lateral Alternative, is similar to one of three alternatives that engineers hired by Beaver Brook drew up last summer. The initial proposal by Kinder Morgan would cut through a number of Beaver Brook properties in Hollis protected by conservation easements, drawing alarm from Beaver Brook as well as other conservation groups. That route would also affect scores of private property owners.

A Route 13 alternative drew both praise and condemnation at a public hearing in Brookline in July.

The alternatives report is part of the long, complicated application process before FERC, which will give its OK based partly on environmental and other factors associated with a pipeline route. FERC is expected to rule sometime next year.

Kinder Morgan, via its Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. subsidiary, wants to bring gas from shale fields in New York to an existing pipeline network in Dracut, Mass. The 3-foot, high-pressure pipeline could carry as much as 2.2 billion cubic feet of gas per day and cost some $2.8 billion. It wouldn’t open until 2018 at the earliest.

The parent company of PSNH is proposing a competing project, which would expand existing pipelines into New England in about the same time frame.

A shortage of natural gas being piped into New England is being blamed for a sharp spike in electricity rates this winter because about half of the region’s power plants use natural gas as a fuel.

David Brooks can be reached at 594-6531 or dbrooks@nashua
telegraph.com.