UGI Energy Services officials recently touted its proactive safety measures during a tour of its compressor station in Wyoming County, the same type of facility planned for Kidder Township to serve the PennEast natural gas pipeline project.

The proposed 48,000-horsepower compressor station, planned near Interstate 80 and Route 940, is scheduled to come before the Kidder Township Zoning Hearing Board on Monday.One of the member companies making up the PennEast Pipeline Company, UGI said one of its most comparable stations was built in two phases starting in 2013 in Meshoppen."Our line here can go to homeowners, industrial facilities or businesses," said John Stahl, superintendent of gas compression at the UGI facility."Where the demand is, that's where the gas goes. We supply Proctor and Gamble here in Wyoming County, and residential homes within a 10-mile stretch of our station."Gas, which is compressed from Marcellus Shale, is given to UGI from certain contracted producers. Before it gets to the station, it is dehydrated."We have to make sure the gas is clean so we can scrub it," Stahl said. "After it comes out of the ground, it's naturally wet, so we have to make sure it's dry. We use moisture and sulfur analyzers to do the testing."Ensuring the quality of the gas is important for UGI's customers, but Stahl said the company also has a state-of-the-art supervisory control and data acquisition system to make sure operators know what is happening inside the station at all times.UGI's 26 gas and 14 fire detectors help it diagnose trouble before it happens."The infrared technology could spot the heat before there would be flames," Stahl said. "We detect gas at 20 percent LEL (lower explosive limit) and shut the station down at 40 percent. The standard is 25 and 50 percent, but we want to make sure we never even get to that point."During normal operations, however, Stahl said the plant runs no higher then 1 or 2 percent.Anything higher would likely indicate a leak.The 118-mile PennEast pipeline would cut through Kidder, Penn Forest, Towamensing and Lower Towamensing townships in Carbon County.Safety of the compressor station has been a main concern of opponents of the pipeline. At a recent Kidder Township supervisors meeting, Linda Christman, of the opposition group Save Carbon County, said compressor stations are more likely than pipelines to be involved in explosions.Stahl said his crew have regular hazard analysis meetings."We go over all of the weird scenarios," he said. What happens if this fails and then that fails and then that fails. We need to be prepared for everything. The safety of the public, our employees and our equipment has to be our top priority."On the day of the tour, UGI moved 100 million cubic feet of gas through the station.Two of its eight compressors were running.Outside the building, noise levels run at about 55 decibels at 100 feet away from the building."It's louder in a normal kindergarten classroom," said Pat Kornick, PennEast spokeswoman. "We're able to stand here and have a normal conversation without shouting."UGI has spent millions of dollars on sound attenuation via Noise Solutions Inc., Stahl said, and the Kidder facility would be no different.Opponents, meanwhile, warn that the stations can be "as loud as an airport."Christman also predicted the station will generate approximately 200 metric tons of pollutants annually into a "previously pristine environment.""The pollutants include CH20 which is primarily formaldehyde; PM10 particle pollution which is highly associated with lung cancer; PM2.5 particle pollution which is the leading cause of mortality from cardiovascular disease; benzene, a cancer-causing compound; sulfur dioxide which smells like rotten eggs and is harmful to human health; and nitric oxide, the principal component of the smog that causes acid rain," she added.Stahl said UGI meets all state and federal guidelines, and all air emissions are well below the Environmental Protection Agency standard.The Kidder Township Zoning Hearing Board will consider PennEast's compressor station application at 6 p.m. Monday at the Galleria at Split Rock Resort.