New Mexico environmental groups seek federal regulators to deny pipeline for Project Jupiter
Environmental groups are asking federal officials to deny a proposed pipeline connected to Project Jupiter, arguing the project raises unresolved environmental and permitting concerns.
Filing asks federal regulators to reject gas pipeline tied to Santa Teresa data center project
Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
This article was originally published by Source New Mexico.
Several New Mexico environmental groups on Monday filed a formal challenge with federal regulators, urging a more exhaustive review of a proposed 17-mile gas pipeline to fuel a controversial data center in Southern New Mexico.
The protest marks the latest objection lodged against the $60-million “Green Chile Project,” which would pipe 400,000 dekatherms of gas from El Paso daily to the private power plants fueling the proposed Project Jupiter, according to documents filed with the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Monday was the final day to file a challenge or submit public comment.
In a Jan. 29 application to federal regulators, Dallas-based developer Energy Transfer — which owns Transwestern Pipeline Company — asked FERC regulators to expedite the process to approve the project, seeking to break ground in April in order to complete the project by August.
Last month, state regulators denied permits to develop segments of the pipeline and other infrastructure on 0.63 miles of state trust lands in Doña Ana County. Public lands officials told Source NM at the time that approving applications “would not be in the best interest of the state’s trust,” and barred construction.
Danielle Prokop
One consequence of that decision, New Mexico environmental groups argued Monday, is that the developers must present a new route to federal regulators, and analyze the civil, environmental and cultural impacts, as well as cost for that route.
Energy Transfer Vice President for Corporate Communications Vicki Granado said in a statement to Source NM the company will “continue to work with FERC so all necessary requirements are met as we move through this process.”
The objections raised by attorneys for the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club and Food & Water Watch said that any approval by federal regulators to fast-track the process would be “premature and inappropriate,” and would violate federal law.
“Transwestern’s efforts to fast-track this proposed pipeline without environmental review are inappropriate given the massive impacts and uncertain future of the sole client it would serve, the Project Jupiter data center,” said Morgan O’Grady, a staff attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center, who helped write the motion to intervene.
State decision-making on the project also remains pending. New Mexico environmental officials pushed back a decision on air quality permits for the twin gas-fired power plants to July, in part to accommodate requests from southern New Mexico lawmakers to hold a public hearing.
The uncertainty of the state’s upcoming decisions and objections by the community to the project should be “reason enough” for FERC to reject the pipeline, Camilla Feibelman, director at the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter, told Source NM.
“Overall, we are talking about a project that stands to essentially wipe out seven years of progress on reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and trying to protect New Mexico from drought and extreme heat,” Feibelman said. “To have this huge-scale project potentially sapping up water, its emission and piping in gas to feed that big demand seems counter to what New Mexico needs right now.”
Danielle Prokop covers the environment and local government for Source New Mexico.
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