“About 100 residents packed the Duanesburg firehouse Tuesday to speak out against a compressed natural gas distribution station proposed for a 54-acre plot just down the road on Route 7.
The town Zoning Board of Appeals delayed a vote on the project’s use variance, which is required because the station would be in an agricultural and residential zoning district. Many residents argued the project would change the essential character of the residential area; one of the four criteria for a use variance is that it would not.
“After reading the Duanseburg comprehensive plan, which clearly shows how our town’s people feel, I wonder how you could even think that a gas compression distribution plant should be able to be built in our town,” said Terri Repscher, who lives on Route 30 near the proposed facility. “There is no other industrial-type building in this part of Duanesburg.”
Residents, who organized under the name Duanesburg’s OWN in late August, recently hired Doug Zamelis of Cooperstown, a environmental law attorney, to represent them in their fight against the project.
The project was first proposed last year by Vermont-based NG Advantage and resurfaced several months ago when Clean Energy, a California-based provider of natural gas, joined the project and submitted a revised application to the town. The station would draw natural gas from the existing Iroquois Pipeline, compress it and then fill NG Advantage delivery vehicles, which would deliver the gas to commercial customers around the Northeast. The method eliminates the need for on-site storage tanks.”
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Campbell, Ned. Schenectady Gazette 16 September 2014.