Yes….thank goodness for my sources….here is a new one:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 25, 2016
Transcontinental Gas Pipeline to Install New Main in East Whiteland Township, Chester County
Yellow Springs Road to Close September 6 to September 19
King of Prussia, PA – The Transcontinental Gas Pipeline will close and detour Yellow Springs Road between Route 29 and North Valley Road in East Whiteland Township, Chester County, beginning Tuesday, September 6, for the installation of a new gas main, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) today announced. The road will be closed Monday, September 19.
During construction, Yellow Springs Road through traffic will be detoured over Route 29, Swedesford Road and North Valley Road. Local access will be maintained up to the construction zone. Motorists are advised to allow extra time when traveling through the area.
Transcontinental Gas Pipeline will complete work under a PennDOT Highway Occupancy Permit.
Motorists can check conditions on more than 40,000 roadway miles by visiting www.511PA.com. 511PA, which is free and available 24 hours a day, provides traffic delay warnings, weather forecasts, traffic speed information and access to more than 770 traffic cameras.
511PA is also available through a smartphone application for iPhone and Android devices, by calling 5-1-1, or by following regional Twitter alerts accessible on the 511PA website.
For more PennDOT information, visit www.penndot.gov. Follow Local PennDOT Information on Twitter at www.twitter.com/511PAPhilly, and follow the department on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pennsylvaniadepartmentoftransportation and Instagram at www.instagram.com/pennsylvaniadot.
MEDIA CONTACT: Charles Metzger, 610-205-6801
Yes….we get inconvenienced as residents, get threatened with eminent domain and other nasty stuff if as residents we resist the gas companies requesting easements. Wells get polluted, wildlife threatened (and worse), environment threatened (and worse). And if you look at this from a purely economic perspective, these pipelines are only profitable for companies putting them in – residents get a paltry one time fee. No annual “rent” check, and these gas companies can trade easements like bubblegum trading cards of our childhood and every new successor gas company that comes in pays affected landowners NOTHING. But hey NONE of this will affect our property values, right? (Sorry being sarcastic because how can this NOT affect property values? Who in their right mind wakes up one day and says “Oh goody let’s put in a gas pipeline for XYZ Gas Company, it will be FUN?!”)
Chester County municipalities just seem to roll over for these companies….leaving residents holding the bag.
(You can read more on pipelines on this blog eastbootroad and in any number of newspapers and websites. Please note the Chester County Community Coalition appears to be defunct. Make sure you check candidates’ donor lists this fall to see who is being supported by big gas and big oil.)
And great news! As per this man’s letter to the editor August 16th, we can put ALL the Chester County pipelines in his back yard, right?
Here is some interesting reading of a few days ago:
On a routine workday in early summer, 2014 — one month before the consortium of gas companies called PennEast, LLC. officially went public to announce their intention to build a 118 mile pipeline to transport fracked gas
from the Marcellus Shale in Western Pennsylvania beneath the Delaware River through farms, wetlands, bedrock and preserved land to a terminus in near Trenton, New Jersey — Susan Dodd Meacham received a phone call
from her daughter.“My daughter told me that a man had stopped by,” says Dodd Meacham. “He gave her his card and asked if he could look around the property.
(see The Truth about Pipeline Companies)
Michigan Radio: Should pipeline companies be able to use eminent domain for natural gas liquids?
There’s been a big push to build new pipelines to move natural gas from well heads, to the people who need it. If it’s considered in the public interest, pipeline companies can get the power of eminent domain. That allows them to route their lines through people’s land, whether the landowner likes it or not.
But what happens when they’re carrying other products – like propane, butane, or ethane – byproducts of natural gas production?
The quiet hills of eastern Ohio have become a popular spot for oil and gas development. Organic farmer Mick Luber says recent years have brought a compressor station and multiple well sites so close, they wake him up at night…..
Then pipeline companies, like Kinder Morgan, came knocking on Luber’s door.
“They wanted to come right down through this main field, and go up over the top of that hill. There’s a spring right up there. That’s the most fertile part of this farm,” he says.
Another company, Marathon, made a deal with Luber’s neighbor, and is already building a pipeline on the southern border of his 65-acre farm. Shell is also planning a line here.
So when Kinder Morgan showed up, Luber said no – no pipeline, not even a survey. “I told them I didn’t want it,” he says.
Kinder Morgan sued.
One of the main arguments in Luber’s defense: the contents of Kinder Morgan’s pipeline. Not natural gas for home heating, but ethane to make plastics for the Canadian company NOVA Chemicals. Ethane, along with propane, and butane, are known as natural gas liquids……They’re byproducts of natural gas that’s being fracked in the region. Increasingly, landowners are arguing that they shouldn’t have to give up their property rights for companies to transport these liquids to make plastics, especially if they’re being sent to other countries….
“FERC has no authority to regulate natural gas liquids in the United States,” says Rich Raiders, an attorney representing about a dozen Pennsylvania landowners in an eminent domain case brought by Sunoco Logistics. “FERC’s authority is strictly limited to natural gas.”
Raiders says when FERC has authority—as it does for siting typical natural gas pipelines—landowners are part of the routing discussions.
“That’s an all-public, eyes-open discussion,” Raiders says. “Whereas for a natural gas liquids line, that’s between the individual landowner and the pipeline company, and no government entity is involved at all.”
And that means eminent domain issues are getting sorted out by courts….
Sunoco would not agree to an interview for this story. But in an email, the company says the Mariner East project will also provide propane for heating fuel to markets in Pennsylvania. In addition, Sunoco says the pipeline is already considered a utility under a 1930s certification granted by the Public Utility Commission for its original pipeline.
In July, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court agreed with the company’s stance, granting eminent domain power in all 17 counties in the pipeline’s path. Sunoco says it has come to an agreement with the majority of landowners. But some residents are still bringing eminent domain fights to the courts.
We need to STOP the EMINENT DOMAIN. We work our entire lives to live in our homes, please tell me why we are supposed to just roll over for companies like Sunoco? Yes a semi rhetorical question because of course the answer is we are NOT supposed to. Only our elected officials do not seem to get that in a lot of cases.
Living in a private property rights state like Pennsylvania means jack sh*t when it comes to these pipelines. Time to stop the whoring in our communities when it comes to pipelines and big gas. Seriously, a simple thing like seeing which candidates accept campaign donations from big gas and big oil can be very illuminating and it creates a simple choice: do you support politicians who do not support and protect you?
Thanks for stopping by.
