Proposed Expansion of Algonquin Natural Gas Pipeline in R.I. Raises Hackles of Residents, Environmental Advocates
February 23, 2026
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BURRILLVILLE, R.I. – Robert Cote was caught off guard when he received a packet of information detailing an “enhancement” to the Algonquin natural gas pipeline in the mail last fall.
“Why are we promoting natural gas and fossil fuels when there was a real push years ago to move to green energy?” Cote wondered. The retired fifth-grade teacher’s property on Hill Road in Pascoag abuts land with Algonquin easements, and he is worried about how the expansion will affect his homestead.
The Algonquin pipeline pressurizes natural gas to help it move from New Jersey to Massachusetts. Enbridge Inc., the Calgary, Alberta-based company that owns the pipeline, is seeking landowners’ permission to survey their property before construction on a $300 million expansion and upgrade to the pipeline system begins in 2029. The work will include replacing 7.1 miles of the existing 16-inch-diameter natural gas transmission pipeline with a 36-inch-diameter pipeline through Norfolk County, Mass., and Cumberland, R.I.; extending its 12-inch-diameter pipeline 2.2 miles in Little Compton and Tiverton, R.I.; installing 3 miles of a 36-inch-diameter pipeline in Burrillville, R.I., tying into its discharge; and adding software upgrades at a compression station in Connecticut.
Enbridge officials said the project will focus on existing infrastructure by upgrading pipes within or next to existing rights of way and will not require construction at any compressor stations. The company claims that the proposed upgrades will reduce transmission constraints — such as low pipeline flow and limited capacity — that have caused reliability issues and contributed to skyrocketing energy costs across the Northeast.
But environmental advocacy groups and some residents who live near the pipeline have expressed concern that the project is in stark contrast to the state’s mandated Act on Climate goals to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
“These projects would increase the amount of gas moving through the system, extending the life of this infrastructure for decades — without committing to lower energy costs,” Climate Action Rhode Island (CARI) said in an email.
Natural gas is non-renewable and releases greenhouse gases when it’s burned. Much of the natural gas that runs through U.S. pipelines comes from hydraulic fracturing (fracking), which has been found to pollute water and set off seismic activity.
Kathy Martley, who lives on Wallum Lake Road near the Algonquin pipeline compressor station, told ecoRI News when Enbridge first proposed the pipeline expansion that her group, B.A.S.E., fears it would mean more construction, more noise, more smells, and more pollution.
Martley said she worries about how construction may impact the wildlife around the area and increase noise around her neighborhood. Blowdowns, a process of routinely releasing gas and pressure on the pipelines through the compressor stations, already cause loud disruptions, and she worries a pipeline expansion may require more of them.
“We should already be changing over to more sustainable stuff,” said Martley, adding that she believes the state should be moving away from methane and toward cleaner renewable energy.
Right now, said Donald Fox, president of the Burrillville Town Council, there are no plans to hold town meetings on the pipeline project.
“As we go forward, the Town Council will discuss things as they become necessary,” he said. “But you have to keep in mind that this is a federal project, and while they’re going to solicit local input, this is a project that’s going to be driven at the federal level. So our input, of course, is going to be centered around constituent concerns.”
CARI is holding a series of presentations on the proposed project in March with NOPE (No Pipeline Expansion) Northeast, and PLAN (Pipeline Awareness Action Network).
The information sessions will be held at the Jesse M. Smith Memorial Library in Burrillville on March 3 from 5:30-7 p.m.; in Tiverton, at the Tiverton Public Library on March 12 from 4:30-6 p.m.; and in Cumberland at the Cumberland Public Library on March 24 from 5-6:30 p.m.
Avery Robertson, assistant director and communications manager for CARI, said the organization decided to hold the information sessions after hearing concerns from property owners about how to respond to Enbridge’s requests.
“We were getting emails from people who were concerned about this, asking what are their rights? How do they respond to this?” Robertson said.
“We needed more comprehensive, informational sessions about some of the language that they use,” she said. “I didn’t know what a looping pipe was until I started learning about this and what different types of pipes are. What does going from a 16-inch pipe to a 32-inch pipe mean?”
Enbridge plans to hold public meetings sharing information about the project in April and May, the company said. After the meetings, the company will submit an application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for approval. Enbridge expects to complete the project by late 2029, according to a company document.
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One of the sadder aspects of the four year battle to prevent the construction of the Invenergy company’s gas-fired power plant along this very pipeline in Burrillville was the failure of the larger environmental interest community in Rhode Island to appreciate its terrestrial impacts on endangered species living along this corridor. Not even the excellent reporting of this publication could put a dent in the wider green community’s inability to appreciate, and more crucially to act upon, these impacts that perhaps could prove fatal to these species. We have no Natural Heritage Program to assess the status of these species since it was inexplicably eliminated by DEM in 2007; and we have no “Incidental Takings” regulatory authority to insure that construction projects, exactly like this one, are conducted so as to protect the endangered species in question. Our major environmental organizations pay no attention to this issue.
They need to be called out. This pipeline is going to be built. There is no stopping it. And unfortunately as well, a serious number of the endangered wildlife in question are going to killed by it.
The state should force it to full public hearings and listento the public. This is just another part of the Trump agenda to kill people and boil the planet
with the extended cold snap continuing, we need to recognize that a great many of us in RI are still dependent on natural gas to keep warm, plus generate electricity. To argue for not addressing limited natural gas supply constraints sounds to me like a political non-starter. And of course abutter objections to any development near them is to be expected – Burrillville seems to have voted for very anti-environment candidates (including strongly for Trump) so it is hard to take concerns there that seriously
Barry is right. And the increase in renewables in the mix actually increases the need for gas to compensate for the constant fluctuation of wind and solar, resulting in more pollution, not less. Every single scientific study of actual events has proven this. And not a single scientific study has shown otherwise. (See the ECRCOT Bentek studies, and others.) The Wind industry produces false claims made up of computer projections, which they control, because of the $billion in subsides and tax credits they can profit from without producing any electricity at all. Meanwhile, Rhode Island has outlawed nuclear power when it is the only clean, on-demand, reliable energy source that can replace coal and, eventually, much of the gas.
Sorry, Mr. Riggs, but you’ve apparently got your facts buried in a snow pile. Wind and solar requiring more fossil fuel to deal with their weather related variable production is rapidly, rapidly becoming an antique fact based on your choice—and the choice the Trump radicals—to ignore the rapidly growing solution to the variable production problem: battery storage. Battery storage is soaring and big projects in both building and planning stages right here in New England. The entire point of battery storage is to mitigate “when the wind don’t and the sun don’t shine” canard that your group is trying to sell.
Here’s the link to the announcement of the most massive battery storage project yet, Boston based FORM ENERGY’s 30 gigawatt hour project in Minnesota. Projects similar to this are sprouting like mushrooms. In a decade, there will be no hot air whatsoever left in the argument that polluting fossil fuels will be needed to supplement the grid when the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine. In two decades, almost no fossil fuel will needed at all. In three, it’ll be just a niche situation.
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/gigantic-form-energy-battery-google-minnesota
Oh, and by the way… Enbridge still owns the 544 Burrillville acres through which the gas pipeline flows and where the Invenergy power plant was slated to be built. And running parallel to the pipeline through the same property at a distance of a quarter mile is the huge interstate and recently upgraded power line that was to be the Invenergy project’s connection to the New England grid.
Undoubtedly, the next project Enbridge and a partner will announce, for the exact same site that Invenergy would have occupied, will be a massive battery storage project. This will likely destroy the nationally imperiled herp species identified there by Invenergy’s biological survey in 2017—a species whose mandatory 7-year Federal study of its status nationwide has already concluded, and the announcement of its Federally Endangered or Federally Threatened status now pending.
But, likely, few will give a damn about that.
I’m wondering if they could be planning an AI Data Center, the gas infrastructure, battery storage and acreage would make that a suitable location for one. RI wants to incentivize AI Data centers. Besides clearing the land, AI Data Centers use a lot of water. https://www.billtrack50.com/billdetail/1958226