Attn. Red Bank Leadership,
PLEASE_____Read the NJ State Constitution. The Constitution grants SOLELY to the towns and counties all Zoning and construction permit rights. Neither The NJ State Public Service Utility Board nor any other State agency has been granted any Legal rights under the NJ Constitution that override the Towns Constitutional Rights.. Your town lawyers should ask the Court that the NJNG law suit be thrown out of court because only the Towns have the NJ Constitutional Rights on what is built in their towns and how______ under the NJ Constitution. Red Bank is acting WITHIN their NJ Constitutional Rights. Read the NJ Constitution and please educate yourselves. Neither the State nor The Governor nor the State Legislature can pass laws or issue any rules or regulations that diminish or Violate the towns NJ Constitutional Rights.

Red Bank is historic. Similar to the ruins and piramids in Egypt, the coleseum in Italy, or the wailing wall in Israel. This town is so important that only official historic colors can be painted on certain properties and nothing exte®ior can be changed. Thank god they preserveÐ the womens club on mBroad st or women would have no where to congregatÉ without shame in pnublic without thÉir husbands. And imagiÑe if all the archeologists stopped visiting our town conducting their massive groudbreaking research? If the Ðoctorates of urban city plÀnning on boa®d in red baÑk that have proven results internatioÑally on other projects allowed foolish new puublic modern parkilng construction or solutions. We would be foiled!!! I would have to give up my second horse and buggy! The whole economy would crash and commercial space would be vacant unless we go very high end and landloards would charge in abundance in relation tÓ retail gross sales potential. Wait ... Red Bank is alreadÝ mostly vacant because of this. Whoops. (Dictated but not read for spelling errors or content)

A way of negotiating with NJ NG is for the town to say OK you can relocate the regulators above ground_____ BUT they must be relocated to the rear of the buildings___not along the front sidewalks and they must be protected from possible vehicle accidents when they are installed in rear parking areas behind the buildings by installing four 6 inch in diameter concrete filled steel pipes around each regulator to prevent damage to the regulators by vehicles that could contact them. If the town made such a counter offer to NJNG it could only serve to improve Red Banks position in any court of law.
In the mean time NJNG position that installing them below ground increases corrossion does not hold water since ALL of NJ NG pipelines are below ground and they corrode also. NYC, Detrior, Chicago, Newark etc. etc., does not allow such above ground installations where they are a danger to pedestrians and an be subjected toi vehicle accidents and explosions.

Sal,
Sounds as if NJNG made the offer to relocate the regulators where possible.

Also, you shouldn't comment on what you you don't know...while "ALL" of the gas company pipes may be below ground, they don't all corrode...almost half are made of plastic and as anyone will tell you, plastic does not corrode...additionally, the pipes that are not made of plastic and cathodically protected and coated to retard any potential deterioration.

Hi Dog,
Well Dog you answered your own question above Dog in your posting and you provided the simple solution. If they can make pipes and if NJNG is already using pipes that do not corrode that they can install below ground___then NJNG can also make or use regulators that do not corrode that they can install below ground__or they can coat then all with fiberglass or epoxy resin to prevent them from corroding. Or they can simply replace then all every 20 years or so as the corrode over time___just as JCPL replaces utility poles and electric delivery lines as the deteriorate over time. Deterioration maintenance and upkeep is solely the problem of NJNG___not Red Banks problem.
Dog, I suggest that you educate yourself and read the NJ Constitution. ONLY the towns can regulate Zoning and Building Permits. You are barking up the wrong tree if you think the Courts are going to overrule Red Banks NJ Constitutional Rights or deny Red Banks NJ Constitutional Rights..
If the Red Bank council really wanted to break NJNG's balls they would charge the utility an annual fee to be allowed to provide service within THEIR town____and dig up the streets and road within THEIR town____the same way the towns decide which private trash haulers are allowed to operate in their towns and which cable TV companies are allowed to operate in their towns. NJNG is being very foolish since the town councils can impose all sorts of fees upon NJNG to operate within their towns.

If you watch documentary programs on our countries infastructure you will realize that elaborate repalcement is not realisitic due to massive cost. If private contractors are set up to spend like this then naturally cost of the service to the consumer will rise. Right?

Did you hear also? Red Bank now instead of giving 36 dollar meter expired tickes is actually confiscating entire vehicles. This will go to pay for the million dollar firework extravaganza that brings all that boomin business to town for one day

Sal,
Barking up the wrong tree? You need to educate yourself about the industry that you are critcizing. Further, you might want to stick to the point because even though I have read the Federal and State Constitutions (multiple times) I never expressed any opinion as to what the court would do ...I simply said that if Red Bank wants to exercise their constitutional rights then they should do it at their own peril and bare the responsibility of their position.

Obviously you have no clue about the following:

1) NJNG doesn't make pipes.
2) NJNG doesn't make regulators...they purchase and install whatever technology is readily available. Just because manufacturers can use plastic pipes for some applications doesn't mean plastic can be used for all applications...a regulator has many more operation components that don't lend themselve to utilization of plastic than does a pipe.
3) It wouldn't be the balls of NJNG that the Red Bank council would be breaking, it would be the balls of it's rate payers (the people in Red Bank) because (again you show lack of industry knowledge) those fees would be recovered from the rate payers in their delivery charge...by the way, so would the costs of the costs of any potential disaster and likely the drawn out lawsuit. Utilities are guaranteed a fixed profit percentage and if they can't make it the ratepayers pay up.
4) Comparing trash haulers and cable companies to a regulated utility is like mixing apples and oranges.

Woof!

Dog, The real price on NG is down to $2.27 cents per 1,000 cubic feet on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange . NJNG is charging their residential customers over $11.00 for the ng they purchase for only $2.27. They have no problems paying their CEO and executives huge salaries and bonuses___all of which comes out of the rate payers pockets. Those sidewalk mounted regulators are a Disaster of Biblical Proportions just waiting to happen. When a vehicle strikes and ruptures one of them and a city block burns to the ground and 100 people are trapped and die___How much is that going to cost the ratepayers???? IF NJNG thinks that type of installation is safe___the NJNG has to PROVE it___by driving a truck into one of them so we can see what happens when it ruptures. NJNG cares nothing about the Lives of Red Bank residents or shoppers___or the Red Bank firemen who would have to respond. Putting human life below NJNG profits is very shortsighted.
Their approach is penny wise and pound foolish because the few thousand dollars the save in installation costs___can result in multi-million dollar law suit settlements along with possible criminal negligence charges if injuries or deaths result from their penny pinching.

Ruptures on the DuPont pipe, made out of a plastic called Aldyl-A, were responsible for explosions in Cupertino and the Sacramento suburb of Roseville (Placer County) within a month's time in 2011.
They are smaller than transmission lines such as the PG&E pipe that exploded in San Bruno in 2010, killing eight people, but they are capable of causing major damage - as evidenced by December 2008 blast in Rancho Cordova that killed a homeowner.
The Aug. 31 blast in Cupertino destroyed a condominium, and the Roseville explosion less than a month later resulted in the shutdown of a major intersection for more than 12 hours. No one was hurt in either incident.
Aldyl-A pipe is especially failure prone when it is pressed against rocks or has been pinched off. DuPont issued warnings to utilities about the failure risk from its pre-1973 Aldyl-A starting in 1982.
At a gas-safety workshop in September, Sunil Shori, a gas engineer with the commission, said Aldyl-A leakage rates were "not drastically different" from other types of plastic lines, although he acknowledged that the material was "not as tough" as later plastics and was prone to sudden rips from cracking.

The next day, Sept. 27, the Roseville pipeline exploded. The utilities commission is investigating both failures.

PG&E and other utilities nationwide have been reporting Aldyl-A failure rates to an industry-run data-tracking system, which is not required to share its findings with state regulators.

Gas Pressure Regulator Failure and Building Explosion
An apartment building exploded when a utility’s pressure regulator failed.
a passerby called 911 after hearing a loud hissing sound. A gas leak was suspected.While the fire engines were being deployed, the building was destroyed in a spectacular explosion. Later, the fire department investigators found that the building’s main natural gas pressure regulator had failed . There were many possible ignition sources, including the still-energized Vikane circulating fans and refrigerator thermostats.

The local gas utility company hired Intertek to investigate. First, we determined that the fumigator had erred in including the regulator inside the tent. Next, we found that the fumigator had not properly shut off the gas. He was supposed to have closed the main gas valve upstream of the regulator, but instead closed the meter valves for the individual apartment units. This meant that the regulator was forced into lock-up, with full line pressure upstream. We arranged a pressure test and inspection of the regulator, with all interested parties attending. We found that the regulator’s rubber diaphragm had ruptured, probably during the lock-up condition. Follow-up work included investigating the failure modes and root cause of failure of the diaphragm.

1995 A 26 inch diameter gas transmission pipeline ruptured and burned near Castle Rock, Washington on March 6. There were no injuries.[505]
1995 On March 20, a natural gas transmission pipeline leaked and burned near Chipola, Louisiana. There were no injuries reported.[506]
1995 On March 27, a bulldozer operator ruptured a 40 inch diameter gas transmission pipeline in Huntersville, North Carolina, causing an explosion. The operator was knocked off the bulldozer, then was run over by the driverless bulldozer.[507]
1995 On December 19, a gas explosion at a twin dwelling in Norristown, Pennsylvania, killed 2 people and injured another person. Gas had migrated from a crack in a 6 inch cast iron gas main in the street.[508]
1996 A gas pipeline failure excised a 30-foot (9.1 m) section of pipe, and the gas later ignited, causing a vegetation fire in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania
1996 A Koch butane pipeline ruptured, causing an explosion and fire, near Kemp, Texas, on August 24. Two teenagers were killed after driving into the unseen butane cloud while going to report the pipeline leak. A mobile home was also destroyed by the fire. The leak was caused by external corrosion. The pipeline was only 15 years old at the time.