To the Editor:

The newly signed pipeline right of way license agreement between Bethlehem Water Authority and the PennEast Pipeline Company LLC, may be a win-win for PennEast and the Bethlehem Authority, but it is a raw deal for the environment in Carbon County.

The proposed 100-foot-wide construction easement cuts through 4 miles in some of the watershed’s most heavily wooded sections, fragmenting forest habitats, and crossing Wild Creek and numerous tributaries that feed into the Wild Creek and Penn Forest Reservoirs. Under the agreement, blasting is prohibited within 250 feet of the authority’s water system infrastructure, but is allowed elsewhere along the route and will be used extensively in the steep, rocky sections along the escarpment.

Blasting may occur in the vicinity of bird breeding areas where it could have an impact on migratory and nesting birds and endangered bats. The pipeline will encourage the spread of invasive species, which is a growing problem in the watershed and all over Carbon County.

According to a representative, the agreement allows the authority to “avoid the costly, uphill legal battle of fighting eminent domain.” As a public water supply system, the Bethlehem Authority has as much claim to “public convenience and necessity” as does the pipeline. Most people would agree that the public’s need for clean water surpasses the “need” of a corporation to profit from the transport of a commodity to markets overseas. The Bethlehem Authority chose to settle with the pipeline, at the risk of polluting an ecological gem and an exceptional source of high quality drinking water.

Sondra Wolferman

Penn Forest