Constitution Pipeline threatens upstate, doesn’t lower our costs
As seen in the Thursday, October 8, 2026 Altamont Enterprise
To the Editor:
Last week I joined the Women’s Water Walk to protest the Constitution Pipeline. For those who aren’t familiar, the Constitution Pipeline is a proposed 125-mile natural gas (fracked gas) pipeline, which will run through many of our upstate communities.
The pipeline, if built, would connect two other pipelines, sending natural gas through existing infrastructure to other states and New York City. No new service lines are proposed to be built in the New York counties where this pipeline is proposed.
One of the key priorities listed by developers for this energy is powering AI data centers. Once again, we rural residents of upstate New York are being asked to host infrastructure that threatens our water, our farmland, and the air we breathe, without even receiving any benefit from this increased risk.
Like so many others, I am concerned about rising energy costs. But the Constitution Pipeline does not address energy needs in our communities. It takes land from its current owners via eminent domain. It endangers the environment and does nothing to lower our energy costs.
And who benefits? Oil and gas companies. Data centers. Corporate greed. Who loses? We the citizens, and nature.
The Women’s Water Walk is a two-week-long prayer and protest march through the towns that will be affected by the Constitution Pipeline, and it ended Oct. 6 in Albany. The day that I spent with the Women’s Water Walk was humbling and enlightening.
Led by indigenous leaders and grandmothers, organizers emphasized the truth that our human world is entirely dependent on the natural world. We can live without endless AI data centers. We cannot live without clean water and air.
I oppose the Constitution Pipeline and urge the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, New York state, and any other agency with a stake in this decision to refuse permission to this project. We need clean, affordable energy that serves human needs and protects our natural world.
Janet Tweed
