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Maggie, Jeanne, Kelly and Annie…WHERE ARE YOU?!

My open letter to New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan and Congress Members Jeanne Shaheen, Kelly Ayote and Annie Kuster.

It is past midnight and I can’t sleep after attending a powerful Pipeline Forum organized and presented by the Town of Temple, NH.

Tonight I learned the deeper truth about the Northeast Energy Direct Pipeline (NED) and the 80,000 horsepower compressor station that Kinder Morgan wants to build one-half mile from my home and that truth is, WE DON’T NEED THEM!

No, really, the pipeline and the compressor station, we don’t need them.

New Hampshire does not need, and will not be the beneficiary of, the copious amounts of natural gas that will flow through the miles and miles of 36″ pipe to span our beautiful New Hampshire. My land, my neighbor’s land, my town’s land, my state’s land are merely a thoroughfare for Kinder Morgan to transport their toxic elixir for export to Europe and Asia. The natural gas was never for us in New Hampshire. But I suspect you knew that.

Fourteen affected towns in Southern New Hampshire have banded together to form a Municipal Coalition and will bear the enormous burden of fighting Kinder Morgan’s pipeline romp through our precious landscape.

It is OUR property values that will decrease.

It is OUR health that will be affected by the tons of noxious poisons Kinder Morgan will expel into our air each time they do a routine blow down.

It is OUR wells, OUR drinking water that will be in danger of contamination. And it is OUR citizens who will be required to test and re-test, and monitor their own wells to make sure that Kinder Morgan hasn’t poisoned them yet…all at the citizen’s expense.

It is OUR parents who will fear letting their children get on a bus to Temple Elementary School each day because, IF a pipeline explosion occurs at the 80,000 horsepower compression station located a half mile from this school, the first responders of Temple and the surrounding towns have been instructed by Kinder Morgan to, “step down”. Apparently the two days of emergency training Kinder Morgan proposes to give our emergency teams is not adequate to equip them to manage such catastrophes and safely evacuate the children.

It is this, all of this, that has me awake past midnight, typing in the dark on my laptop.

And so I ask myself, are my town and the other 13 affected towns, that expendable?

You know, my town of New Ipswich is zoned as rural, which means that Kinder Morgan is not required to use the highest and safest grade steel in the pipes they want to bury in our soil. So someone, somewhere decided that if a town does not have a particular number of residents, then that town does not get the same level of protection from potential natural gas pipeline accidents as another town with ONE more resident. What is that magic number that makes a town’s children worth protecting, I wonder? What is that tipping point?

At each pipeline-information meeting I attend I am told over and over again to write to you. I am told that you just need to hear enough times from enough people that we KNOW this pipeline project is not good for our state’s environment and economics. Apparently it takes the right number of people shouting and pleading and typing the same core message to you over and over and over again before you will agree that you must oppose Kinder Morgan’s pipeline and compressor station. Agree that opposition is the only right thing to do for your state. What is that magic number, I wonder? What is that tipping point?

But why do we have to write you pleading letters to tell you what you already know? Each of you got to your political stations in life because you are smart, capable women. When you each took office, you were charged with looking out for us, for our state, first and foremost in all matters. That is your mandate.

So let’s cut to the chase, Maggie, Jeanne, Kelly, and Annie. Please show YOUR constituents of Southern New Hampshire the respect we deserve by being honest as to why you refuse to oppose this monster of a pipeline and its compressor station? Are we expendable? Are these 14 towns the sacrificial lambs to some “higher” corporate agenda?

On behalf of Southern New Hampshire, I DEMAND you be honest and tell us why you will not oppose this pipeline and compressor station.

And telling me that you do not have the power to stop this is not a good enough answer.

Massachusetts had the support of their Governor and Representatives in Congress and Kinder Morgan withdrew its proposal and moved on to New Hampshire. It CAN be done. It is your JOB to oppose this.

Why are you leaving us to fight this without you? We choose to live pipeline-free or die trying! We are New Hampshire!

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