MARY ESCH, Associated Press
HARPERSFIELD, N.Y. (AP) — The 124-mile Constitution Pipeline will likely bring some relief from high natural gas prices to residents of New York City and New England, but it will also bring anguish to some landowners in the wooded hills and valleys in its path.
It will slash a mile-long gash through a pristine forest tended by the Kernan family for seven decades. It will spoil Andrew Havas’ plans to build a home and automotive shop. It will disrupt farming operations for dairyman Ken Stanton. It will dash hopes Bob Lidsky and Bev Travis had of building the hilltop home where they planned to retire with their five huge mountain dogs.
“This pipeline destroys any hope of either building or selling the land for a profit,” said Lidsky, a retired designer who raises Leonberger dogs with his wife in the Catskills hamlet of Andes and also owns 42 acres in the pipeline’s path.
Of 651 landowners in New York and Pennsylvania affected by the $700 million pipeline project, 125 refused to sign right of way agreements. Condemnation proceedings undertaken by Constitution under the Natural Gas Act have largely resolved the remaining disputes, either through settlements or access granted by a judge.
Only four property owners still have cases pending, all in New York. The courts will set compensation for landowners who did not reach agreements on their own. In Lidsky’s case, for example, the judge granted Constitution access and ordered the company to cover compensation of up to $11,600.
“We’re looking at early summer to start construction,” with completion next year, said Chris Stockton, spokesman for Tulsa, Oklahoma-based pipeline operator Williams Partners LP. Most regulatory hurdles have been cleared, though the project still needs air and water permits from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and another permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.
Many communities along the pipeline’s path from Pennsylvania’s gasfields to a transmission hub 80 miles southwest of Albany support the project for the jobs, taxes, and access to natural gas it will bring. Williams Partners has also cultivated good will by doling out more than $1.6 million in grants since 2012 to local fire companies, theater groups, historical societies, parks and recreation programs. Pipeline backers say it is the first to be approved out of a slew of proposals designed to bring cheaper domestic gas to northeast markets that have become increasingly reliant on it for home heating.
Opposition has been fierce. Much of it is fueled by the general anti-fracking sentiment that resulted in Gov. Andrew Cuomo announcing plans to ban shale gas development in New York’s part of the Marcellus Shale, the rock formation beneath Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio that will fill the new pipeline.
For many landowners, though, the opposition is personal.
“To me, it’s the principle of the thing, that they’re just taking land that I’ve paid dearly for over the years,” said Ken Stanton, whose dairy farm supports three generations in Schoharie. Stanton fought for more than two years to get the pipeline moved to a less disruptive route across his farm instead of through his planned retirement home, well and heifer barn. He ultimately refused to sign an access agreement. Constitution took him to court and won.
Five siblings who own about 1,000 acres of pristine forest straddling Delaware and Otsego counties known as Charlotte Forest are among those with eminent domain cases pending in New York. Dev Kernan, 68, said the project calls for a mile-long, 75-foot-wide swath to be cleared across the land between two ecologically rare sphagnum bog lakes.
Kernan said that in addition to the environmental concerns, his opposition is also personal. “The central point of my life is the dock on that lake.”
The Kernan family has persuaded Constitution to consider horizontal directional drilling to install the pipeline deep below the property rather than the normal method of clearing trees and digging a trench to lay the pipes.
Stockton said landowners are compensated based on market value of their land, but he couldn’t provide an overall dollar amount.
“We’ve been working with most of the affected landowners for nearly three years and throughout this long process we’ve demonstrated our willingness to be flexible and make adjustments to the route in direct response to the feedback we received,” he said.
Bob Strother is out of luck. Though he will soon have a 30-inch-diameter gas transmission line 75 feet from his bedroom, it will be on his neighbor’s property.
He worries about a catastrophic explosion, contamination of his well water, and devaluation of his property.
“I get no compensation and this thing is right next to my house,” Strother said.
Havas’ 50-acre strip of land in Harpersfield was the site of a 2004 propane pipeline explosion that incinerated a mobile home. He got a good deal on the land and planned to build there, but not anymore. Still, he’s satisfied with the roughly $80,000 payment he’s getting after much battling and haggling with Constitution.
“Initially I wasn’t happy about it, but I didn’t think anybody was going to get the pipeline stopped,” Havas said. “You don’t have any recourse against these guys unless you’re mega rich.”
