The expansionary strategies of oil and gas companies through the construction of pipelines are an ongoing challenge for US-based grassroots environmental justice organizations. The strategy of Kinder Morgan is to expand a natural gas pipeline "to meet increased demand in the U.S. Northeast for transportation capacity [of] natural gas.” The pipeline will provide a capacity of 72,100 Dekatherms/day (3), which will have an energy equivalent  of 12,430 Barrels of Oil per day (4,5). The majority of opposition to the project is centered around the approximately 4-mile stretch of pipe currently being installed in Berkshire County Massachusetts with 2-miles through Otis State Forest (6), an 900-acre old growth forest in Sandisfield, Massachusetts, which includes trees more than 400 years old. This forest had been purchased by Massachusetts taxpayers for $5.2 Million in 2007 in order to place it into perpetual protection, of which Kinder Morgan intends to interfere. 

Groups opposing this pipeline include: Massachusetts PipeLine Awareness Network, Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT), Pipeline Awareness Network for the Northeast, Sugar Shack Alliance, and Sandisfield Taxpayers Opposing the Pipeline. At least 70 arrests of protesters have been made thus far (7, 8, 9, 10, 11), including that of a 98 year-old female peace activist (12).

In a legal challenge to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval of the project, the Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey questioned the jurisdiction of FERC over "a state’s right to protect and control its sovereign territory”. The 1972-ratified Article 97 to the Massachusetts state Constitution declares that certain lands, Otis State Forest among them, shall be preserved in perpetuity and that only a vote of two-thirds in both state legislative bodies (senators and representatives) can revoke a location's protected status. However, in May 2016, citing the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the Natural Gas Act of 1938, Associate Justice John A. Agostini of the Berkshire County Superior Court ruled in favor of FERC's authority to supersede state environmental protections (14). An appeal of this ruling titled: PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, was brought forth by 16 citizens and the group BEAT to the Massachusetts First Circuit Court of Appeals. To this petition, the Court ruled it had no jurisdiction to overturn MassDEP, the state environmental regulator, affirming MassDEP as the authority to hear pipeline-related challenges when applicable under the U.S. Clean Water Act, citing 33 U.S.C. § 1341(a)(1) and § 1341(d) (15*). The ruling also stated that MassDEP has the right to conduct its own permitting process when it comes to applications from gas pipeline firms to alter streams, ponds, and other water resources under Massachusetts jurisdiction (16). 

However, this ruling leaves the preservation of Otis State Forest under Article 97 moot against a FERC permit, and, to the deep aversion of protesters, MassDEP also granted approval for the pipeline on June 29th, 2016 (17). In December 2016, Tennessee Gas agreed to pay the state $640,000 for the pipeline easement through Otis State Forest (18) after suing Massachusetts in March the same year for not having acted to approve the easement (House Bill 3690 (19)) at that time, thereby delaying construction (20). At the town level, "Tennessee Gas lawyers last year made a verbal agreement to give the town about $1 million for wear and tear to roads, and to reimburse the town's roughly $40,000 in legal fees it took to draft the agreement. After spending months negotiating in good faith the company never signed" said Sandisfield Select Board Chairwoman Alice Boyd (21).

Construction began May 2017 in Otis State Forest, where 30 acres of state-listed protected forest is to be cut (22) and has now been completed. Permission was granted by FERC to transport gas beginning November 1st, 2017 (25); the pipeline is now in operation. Already, there has been 547,000 gallons of contaminated pipeline test water (26, 27); protests continue (30). Sandisfield highway chief Bobby O’Brian states the public roadway is “shot from pipeline work” and that he is not provided any information from Kinder Morgan regarding road repairs, even though he has asked them every week (31).

Before 1950 in Massachusetts, USA, natural gas was manufactured from coal or oil through chemical processes; whereas today, natural gas is sourced from hydraulic fracking. The fracking wells, which differ from water wells, are volumes of underground earth and stone that have absorbed within them natural gas able to be extracted (1). The gas flows from wells through interstate transmission pipelines. Approximately 1,000 miles of interstate gas transmission lines exist in Massachusetts and are owned and operated by three companies: Algonquin Gas Transmission Company, Maritimes and Northeast Pipelines Company, and Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company (23), the latter a wholly owned subsidiary of Kinder Morgan and the largest transporter of petroleum products in North America and supplier of almost 38% of U.S. consumed natural gas.

Kinder Morgan's website states: “This expansion project is developed to meet increased demand in the U.S. Northeast for transportation capacity for natural gas.” (3). Kinder Morgan's approximately $99 Million Connecticut Expansion Project (3), first proposed in May 2014 (2) and approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on March 11th, 2016 (13), consists of 13.4 miles of new gas pipelines to establish a contiguous supply of natural gas by connect existing pipes in Albany County, New York; Berkshire and Hampden Counties, Massachusetts, and Hartford County, Connecticut. This pipeline transports an energy equivalent of 12,430 Barrels of Oil per day (4,5).

Construction began May 2017 in Otis State Forest, where 30 acres of state-listed protected forest is to be cut (22) and has now been completed. Permission was granted by FERC to transport gas beginning November 1st, 2017 (25), and the pipeline is now in operation. For pipeline security between April 30th and June 3rd 2017 Kinder Morgan paid the Massachusetts State Police $115,949.33, a practice criticized as inappropriate and against public interests (24). As of November 20th, 2017, these security payments have totaled more than $770,000 (29).