Developers of a 118-mile natural gas pipeline that would run through four Carbon County municipalities filed the much anticipated formal application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday.

PennEast Pipeline Company LLC made the announcement during a media teleconference at 10 a.m.The application to FERC is for a certificate of public convenience and necessity and signals the next step in allowing the company to construct the pipeline.Peter Terranova, chairman of the PennEast board of managers; Jack Herbert, of NJR Energy Services; and David Taylor, president of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, participated in the call.PennEast officials have consistently said the formal filing would come by the end of September and, if approval is granted, construction would begin in 2017.“This is a positive milestone in our process,” Terranova said. “It’s obvious infrastructure constraints are causing high energy prices and this will help alleviate that. We’ve listened to important input from landowners of the past year and it has greatly helped us to prepare the route and today’s filing.”Discussions with property owners suggesting alternate routes are ongoing. If the discussions are compelling, Terranova said, PennEast will entertain them.“The route is pretty decent right now,” Terranova said, “but it’s not necessarily a final route.”Approximately 33 percent of the line is now co-located near other lines, Kornick said.On its way from Wilkes-Barre to Trenton, New Jersey, the 36-inch pipeline is projected to slice through Kidder, Penn Forest, Towamensing and Lower Towamensing townships in Carbon County.Around 150 property owners in Carbon County would be affected by the route.During a meeting with Times News staff in June, PennEast spokesman Anthony Cox said he felt confident FERC would grant the necessary certificate to the company.“It would be unprecedented with the demand for this project for FERC not to approve a route,” Cox said. “Projects aren’t built on speculation. This one certainly is not. We are 99 percent contracted at this point.”PennEast again stressed Thursday that the gas would not be exported overseas.“The pipeline is designed to serve local consumers,” said PennEast spokesman Pat Kornick.OppositionCarbon County residents have spoken out against the pipeline since it was proposed last year.“It is very disheartening to see PennEast ignore concerns of property owners south of Beltzville Park,” Towamensing Township resident Diane Conner wrote FERC this month. “Multiple property owners will lose mature trees that provide privacy and are irreplaceable. The Coniferous forest that surrounds them provides a sense of peace in this crazy world. It provides a natural privacy fence with character that cannot be replaced.“It takes time for a young tree to mature to the size of the trees that will be lost. The damage that fragmentation will cause cannot be mitigated. The loss of natural habitat to the wildlife cannot be replaced. It will place a permanent ugly scar on this beautiful landscape.”While PennEast has said it will make every attempt to fairly negotiate with landowners along the route before using eminent domain to acquire necessary rights of ways, Towamensing Township’s Linda Christman isn’t convinced.“The analysis and careful planning that should be expected from the developer of a pipeline that may be awarded the ability to take land through eminent domain has fallen short of the mark,” she said in a Sept. 17 letter to FERC. “With respect to the Bethlehem Water Authority lands located in Towamensing Township, the pipeline route was proposed without benefit of any plans showing the location of the authority’s critical infrastructure. In part, as a result of this lack of due diligence, the proposed route endangers several critical structures including the headwaters of streams that are the source of the municipal water supply, the water main, two tunnels and two reservoirs. There is no redundancy for these structures and an accident or explosion may result in the loss of water supply for 115,000 residents.”PennEast sent initial consultation letters to federal and state agencies on Aug. 12, 2014.Since that point, the pipeline has gone through 60 to 100 modifications.Penn Forest, Kidder, Lower Towamensing and Towamensing townships have all passed resolutions opposing the pipeline. Mahoning Township, which is not in the path of the pipeline, also opposes it.“We have visited with over 1,300 people through open houses,” Kornick said. “We know not everyone will agree, but we will continue to work with local communities.”