The new proposed route of the PennEast natural gas pipeline will have more impact on wetlands, Lower Towamensing Township supervisors learned Tuesday.

Carolyn Lange of the "Save Carbon County" group discussed changes at the board's meeting.Lange said the information is included as part of the "Save Carbon County" May report.She said the PennEast project "has made two small changes to the pipeline in Carbon County over the last two months."One change benefits the Appalachian Trail, Lange said.In their first proposal, Lange said the pipeline would have paralleled the trail in Lower Towamensing before crossing it.Now, the pipeline makes a clean crossing of the trail in the township on property owned by the Blue Mountain Ski Area, Lange said.The second change, Lange said, was to benefit the protection of the Bethlehem Water Authority water main.However, Lange said that will cause more environmental damage to wetlands and Hunters Creek in Lower Towamensing.Now the pipeline crosses the water main at a point near Route 209 and Sei Pike, where the water main is buried at a depth of 100 feet or more, she said.In the prior plan, Lange said the gas pipeline would have been less than 3 feet away from the water main.As part of the new route configuration, Lange said the pipeline will parallel Hunters' Creek and associated wetlands, before crossing the creek and heading toward Blue Mountain Ski Area.The parallel path is more destructive to the wetlands and the creek than a clean crossing would have been, she said.Lange said the Delaware River Basin Commission is now becoming involved with the Environmental Impact Study.She said Kidder Township is in the process of drafting an ordinance that will as far as possible set requirements for the compressor station, which is slated to be located near Hickory Run State Park.In addition, Lange said the "Save Carbon County" group has collected 400 signed postcards opposing the PennEast pipeline. The signatures were collected at the recent Jim Thorpe Earth Day Festival.The group continues to monitor the Bethlehem Water Authority meetings, which it feels can be a powerful voice against the pipeline.Lange said she believes every municipality in the county along the pipeline route, including Lower Towamensing, has adopted resolutions expressing their opposition to the pipeline.In March, supervisors adopted the resolution objecting to the construction and path of the proposed 114-mile pipeline, which would cut through Lower Towamensing, Towamensing, Penn Forest and Kidder townships on its way from Wilkes-Barre to New Jersey.The 36-inch pipeline has a projected in-service date of November 2017.PennEast is currently in the pre-filing stage.In February, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission held a public listening session at Penn's Peak to gather testimony to formulate an environmental-impact statement on the pipeline.About 125 people attended that session to give testimony, which was recorded and entered into record, along with other input from landowners and public agencies about the project.In November, PennEast held an open house at the Aquashicola Fire Company at which nearly 300 people, including landowners, sought answers about the proposed pipeline.