Pipeline firm 'optimistic' about federal approval

[hrmjustin]

Joe Mahoney


COOPERSTOWN — A long-awaited determination on a final environmental impact statement for the 124-mile Constitution Pipeline is now slated to be issued Oct. 24 and a decision on whether the project will be licensed is to come three months later, according to federal regulators.

The proposed natural gas transmission line has divided the business groups and trade unions that support it and many landowners who argue it will devalue their property and leave a rural swath of upstate New York a prime target for shale gas drilling.

The Federal Energy Regulator Commission, the agency that must approve the $683 million project for it to be constructed, had initially set June 13 as the date when it would wrap up the environmental impact statement.

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