NORWICH – Discussions concerning natural gas pipelines dominated the two-plus hour Chenango County Natural Gas Advisory Committee meeting held at the County Office Building last month.

Chenango County Emergency Management Director Matt Beckwith was on hand to answer the committee’s questions regarding safety issues, such as mapping and tagging pipelines and gathering lines. Town officials from Smyrna and Plymouth, where much of the county’s natural gas activity is occurring, asked for maps so that residents and future property owners would know where the infrastructure was buried.

But according to Beckwith, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security prohibits public disclosure of natural gas pipeline locations. While he assured the committee that Norse Energy, Inc., the company currently developing Chenango County’s Herkimer Sandstone reserves, has given him the coordinates – and that both lines and well heads have been assigned 911 addresses – he said disclosing that information publicly could result in it landing in the hands of terrorists.

“Everything’s changed since 9/11,” said Beckwith. “The (whereabouts of) pipelines are considered a high security risk resource in our county because of terrorist threats. They could know where they are.”

The handful of wells that Norse is presently drilling will be included on the maps shortly, he said.

Neither James Bays, supervisor for the Town of Smyrna, nor other members of the committee were satisfied with Beckwith’s explanation.

“This is an exposure greater on the local level than on national level,” said Bays. “I’m growing more and more concerned as we get busy with gathering lines in my town. We want to get maps. We’re thinking we need to mark them every so many feet, more than they are doing. And they need to be deeper. Get it down there, at least four feet into the bedrock.”

“People are moving up here and out of county ... they aren’t going to see new dredging going on now. Awful things happen when folks hit them,” he said.

Town of New Berlin Supervisor Ross Iannello concurred, and moved a resolution to the county’s Safety & Rules Committee to publicize the maps of pipelines already in place.

“Why can’t the towns have their own local laws to say where they (the lines) are located?” he asked.