PennEast Pipeline LLC’s filing of a formal application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday may signal progress, but the $1.2 billion project has yet to gain FERC’s blessing and is still two years away from being “shovel ready.”

Peter Terranova, PennEast board chairman, said that even the route of the 118-mile pipeline, starting near Wilkes-Barre and ending around Trenton, New Jersey, is not set in stone.“It’s hard to say there is a specific deadline for that,” Terranova said. “We still have properties we need to get to in New Jersey and we’re continually listening to the landowners along the route. If there are changes they would like to see and they’re feasible, we’ll consider them. As we get closer to the environmental impact statement, we’ll need to be more precise.”The pipeline is projected to cross through Kidder, Penn Forest, Towamensing and Lower Towamensing townships before heading out of Carbon County.To date, the route has undergone over 100 changes, many of them minor, according to Terranova.In Carbon County, PennEast changed the route where the pipeline crosses the Appalachian Trail. While still crossing over the trail, it now runs on land owned by Blue Mountain Ski Resort.The change allows the pipeline to connect with a proposed natural gas powered plant on top of the mountain.Currently, the route would impact approximately 31 landowners in Kidder, 61 in Penn Forest, 44 in Towamensing and 16 in Lower Towamensing.Linda Christman of Towamensing Township posted her reaction to Thursday’s news on the Stop the Fracking Pipeline Facebook page.“Many of us believe that they should not have been allowed to file a formal application because their application lacked important information concerning safety, environmental concerns and their approach to construction of the pipeline,” she wrote.Maya K. van Rossum, of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said the environmental community will “do what it has to” in fighting to keep out the pipeline.“The PennEast Pipeline is not wanted and it is not needed and if it were to be built it would inflict irreparable harm on the Delaware River Valley and Susquehanna River Valley communities it will cut through,” she said. “There are numerous expert reports already on the record documenting the water and air pollution that will result, the loss of forest, damage to ecotourism, increased erosion and flooding impacts, and damage to local businesses PennEast would inflict.”Following Thursday’s filing, FERC will issue a notice of receiving the application within 10 days. FERC will then begin a draft of its environmental impact statement and initiate a public comment. They may host public meetings to get additional information.Landowners worried about losing property for PennEast’s right-of-ways have some time to figure out an alternative solution.“We haven’t begun land acquisition efforts yet,” Terranova said, “but we’ll be doing it shortly. I think it’s premature at this time to discuss the ultimate outcome. We’ll do everything we can to reach a fair agreement with landowners. That is why it’s important for those landowners who haven’t allowed us to survey their property to do that.”About 78 percent of landowners in Pennsylvania have agreed to allow surveyors on their land compared to just over 30 percent in New Jersey.With the line ending in New Jersey, Pennsylvanians in opposition to the pipeline have argued that the state bears all the risk without seeing any of the benefits.Dave Taylor, executive director of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, said that while it may be inconvenient for someone to have a stretch of pipeline running through their yard, the potential benefits are large.“Most of our infrastructure now is connected to the Gulf of Mexico,” Taylor said. “The cost of transmission alone is huge. If we can connect Pennsylvania industrial consumers to Pennsylvania generated energy, that puts us in a greatly improved economic condition.”PennEast has three planned pipeline interconnects in Pennsylvania, including the one at Blue Mountain.“This gas will benefit consumers in Pennsylvania,” Terranova said.