FERC completes millennium review, denies orders on rehearing. (Projects).

After a formal review of the Millennium Natural Gas Pipeline project, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued an order approving an alternative route for the final 1.2-mile segment of the 425-mile 36- and 24-inch pipeline. As planned, the pipeline will run from a TransCanada Pipe

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The $700 million Millennium project is designed to deliver 700,000 Dth/d of natural gas to growing energy markets in New York and the Northeast. More than 90 percent of the pipeline's 425-mile overland route uses existing utility corridors, with about 224 miles of the project replacing and upgrading an existing constrained pipeline system owned and operated by Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. That existing system serves several major gas end-users, utilities and their customers in New York's Southern Tier region.

Karl Brack, spokesman for Columbia Gas Transmission, says construction cannot begin until the Department of Commerce rules on an appeal of a New York State decision that Millennium's crossing of the Hudson River jeopardizes village of Croton-on-Hudson's Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, thereby violating the state's Coastal Zone Management Plan. Brack says the ruling could come before year end.