The New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve, established by Congress in 1978, includes portions of seven southern New Jersey counties, and encompasses over one-million acres of farms, forests and wetlands. It contains 56 communities, from hamlets to suburbs, with over 700,000 permanent residents. It is the largest body of open space on the Mid-Atlantic seaboard between Richmond and Boston and is home to dozens of rare plant and animal species and the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer system, which contains an estimated 17 trillion gallons of fresh water.
On February 24, 2016, the Pinelands Commission met to rubber stamp an application by South Jersey Gas to build a 22” high pressure natural gas pipeline through the Reserve. Some 500 people turned out to protest this action. After the application was approved the Commission heard comments from the public. My comment is below.
Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, my name is Fr. David Stump. I am a Catholic priest living and working in Jersey City NJ.
On January 18 of this year the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that 2016 was the hottest year since record keeping started in1890. The past three years, 2014, 2015 and 2016 have each broken all previous records for the average temperature of the earth. This morning people waiting to attend this meeting stood outdoors in shirtsleeves in the middle of February. Global warming is no longer a myth but a problem seriously impacting people all around the planet.
The people of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific are already seeing significant land loss due to rising ocean levels and are facing the probability that their entire country could go underwater. The Sami people of Lapland are facing hunger because changing weather patterns have interfered with the ability of the reindeer herds to find winter forage. Forest fires in the American West are larger, more frequent and more destructive than in the past. South West states have been plagued by alternate droughts and torrential rains. Cities up and down the East Coast are having more and more problems with storm surges and ocean flooding. And the flood of people migrating out of Africa into Europe is driven, at least in part, by famine, due to drought, intensified by Global Warming.
For decades the scientists have been warning us that the only effective way to deal with these problems is to drastically reduce the use of coal, oil, and natural gas. The sign I carry to events like this says “Build for Wind and Solar, not for Oil and Gas.” This pipeline should not be built. We should not be building any more pipelines for oil and gas. I don't know how many millions of dollars South Jersey Gas has budgeted for this project, but if that money were put into developing wind and solar farms we would all be much better off.
I also note that at this meeting the vote to approve the pipeline was made before the public was offered a chance to make comments. I take that as a clear sign that although you are public servants you are less interested in the opinion of the public then that of big business and wealthy donors to political causes.
As a priest I will pray for you that when you stand before the throne of God and you are asked to give an accounting of your stewardship of this special ecological area, May God have mercy on your souls.
Thank you.
David X. Stump, S.J.