Town and planning boards hold public hearing on gas line
O&R looking to install pipe on Old Ridge Road Warwick The Town of Warwick and its planning board will hold a joint public hearing Wednesday, Jan. 17, on a proposal from Orange & Rockland Utilities to install a natural gas pipeline the length of Old Ridge Road. According to the town’s engineer, Zen Wojcik of Tectonic Engineering, the proposal came to the planning board last June. O&R is requesting to install the gas line the entire length of Old Ridge Road, from Taylor Road to Route 17A/94. Before declaring itself lead agency, the planning board contacted the town board as an interested party since the town has a longtime agreement with the utility for a right of way. The town board decided to hold a joint public hearing, gathering the public’s comments on the project that is slated to begin in the spring if approval is received. Fred Clark, a senior gas engineer with O&R, said this project is being done in conjunction with the Millennium project. “Two stations feed upper Orange County,” said Clark. “One will be closed off (because of the Millennium project). This pipeline will allow us to maintain capacity.” The two stations Clark referred to feed natural gas to customers from Westtown to Wawayanda to Goshen and Florida and Warwick. The target start date is May 1, said Clark, and it should continue for about 3½ months. Wojcik said the timing is to coincide with the end of the school year so that much of the work will be done when school buses are off the road. O&R will lay 13,500 feet of pipe if the project is approved. Detours have been approved by the planning board, Clark said. Old Ridge Road will remain open for local traffic. The plan is to work on 200 feet of the road each day. Each property will be inconvenienced for one to two days, he said. O&R will use state and county roads to transport its equipment, avoiding town roads, Wojcik said. Roadwork will be done slowly. “They will be doing the work incrementally,” said Wojcik. “They won’t rip up the entire road and make it impassable. It will be a temporary inconvenience for residents.” The benefits to Warwick will be better gas service, Clark said. O&R will repave the entire length of the road when the project is complete and will replace two old culverts in the process. And, while the residents of Old Ridge Road do not even have natural gas service, they will be given the opportunity to tap into the system in the future. “When all is said and done, this is benefiting 4,000 gas customers in the Town and Village of Warwick,” said Clark. “We are putting in a smaller diameter pipe so that, down the road, people on the road can hook up.” The public hearing will be held at the Town Hall, Wednesday, Jan. 17, at 7:30 p.m