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Gated valves for pipelines sit on Carl Huggins' farm in Newington, Ga. Huggins has quit farming the field next to it, due to repeated construction for other pipelines.
Credit: Jillian Magtoto / GPB News
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'That land is always gonna be changed.’ Screven County farmers fear new gas pipeline’s impact
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LISTEN: The United States is expanding the use of some fossil fuels to satisfy rapidly growing demand for electricity, much of that due to the spread of data centers. Now, a new gas pipeline may be planned to cross one county in South Georgia. GPB's Jillian Magtoto reports.
Three gas pipelines run below rows of cotton, peanuts and soy on William "Carl" Huggins' family farm in Newington, Ga. Over time, he has seen how the pipeline construction has marred his ability to grow crops.
"Production is down every year on that right-of-way," Huggins said. "It's totally changed the way you farm that field."
Now, a fourth pipeline may be coming to his property.
Along with over 30 other farmers in Screven County, Huggins received a request from gas pipeline company Kinder Morgan last September to survey his land.
The company seeks to build the Bridge Project, an estimated $430 million, 30-inch diameter pipeline that could siphon gas from the Elba Express Pipeline, already running through Screven County, to a proposed Dominion Energy power plant in Colleton County, S.C., about 70 miles away.
While Huggins doubts he can prevent yet another pipeline from coming to his farm, he hopes this time he can have a bit more say in where it goes and how much he can get compensated.
"If we're growing a crop and you come out and destroy that crop to work on your gas line, pay us for it," Huggins said. "At least make us feel like you're trying to do right."
'Never gonna be like it was'
Pipelines have lived at Huggins’ farm longer than he has. He recalls being about 5 years old when he first witnessed them being laid into the ground.
"My great-granddaddy let them come through in '52 or '54, and then my daddy let them come through in '77 or '78," Huggins said. "I just vaguely remember the big machines, which I really thought were cool."
But over the years, he saw how the land has responded for the worse. Rusty red strips of clay cross dirt brown fields, betraying where the pipelines lie several feet below.
The red means that the soil is heavily compacted, Huggins said. Water moves less easily through the soil there. Fertility is reduced, and yield is about halved. In some areas, he’s just given up growing completely, as machines return to dig up the soil for the next pipeline.
He’s tried to fix the soil with fertilizer, lime and chicken poop. All that can amount to thousands of dollars.
"They didn't ever pay us anything for damaging the crop, or offer to put the soil back like it was," Huggins said. "That land is always gonna be changed."
The pipelines have created costs, losses and property devaluation that are difficult to quantify. Pipelines mean that he is unable to plant pecan and pine trees — with deep roots that would damage the pipes below — or pass down its former value to future generations.
"My children might want to sell some of that land or develop it," Huggins said. "Wait a minute, we got a big gas pipeline right under it."
A call to survey
Left with a bad taste in his mouth from past pipelines, Huggins ignored the letters from Kinder Morgan, arriving in thick white envelopes since last fall, asking for permission to survey his property. Still, they kept coming. A second arrived in winter and a third in the spring, along with a representative from the company herself at his doorstep.
"This is a non-invasive survey, so this is not in any way allowing us to build a pipeline to acquire the land," said Kinder Morgan Vice President of Public Affairs Allen Fore. "It is simply determining the viability of that property."
Huggins has not yet signed over permission, though it appears his property could be a critical junction where the Elba Express Pipeline meets the Bridge Project.
Exactly where that point will be is yet to be determined, Fore said.
"We have a proposed route that would involve a particular landowner at that connection," Fore said. "But we haven't made a final decision on routing yet in Screven County, or, for that matter, the entire route."
Once surveying is done by the end of this year, the company will apply for approval to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Approval would likely mean Kinder Morgan could acquire private property through eminent domain.
Water meets gas
Sisters Margo Metts and Lynn Shepherd are also withholding their signature that would allow Kinder Morgan to survey their land. Their farm lies about a mile away from Huggins’ — and the farm is one that is especially wet.
“All of Screven County is located between the Ogeechee and Savannah rivers,” Shepherd said. “Part of our farm is between two watersheds.”
A lake and pond filled with cypress trees, turtles, and cranes lie yards away from fields of newly planted peanuts. Judging by the survey request they received in their mailbox, Shepherd and Metts said it appears the pipeline could cut right between the water and fields.
"It'll be coming on through here, right over there, the edge of Lake Eureka," Shepherd said. "The wetlands, the ducks, the deer, and the wildlife will definitely be affected."
As with other farms, the sisters’ farms are irrigated by groundwater wells that sit about a few hundred feet below the surface. These wells are fed by surface water percolating through soils from above.
"The concern of it going through our backyard and being in close connection to our wells, water supplies, and irrigation is of grave concern," Shepherd said.
The environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council has reported contamination of drinking water supplies due to spills from several gas pipelines.
Still, Kinder Morgan’s Allen Fore asserts that the pipeline will not affect groundwater.
"Natural gas is a gas, and it's lighter than air," Fore said. "So if there's any release of gas from the pipeline, it goes up, it doesn't go down, so natural gas pipelines aren't going to be impacting water supply."
The path of pending resistance
Along the highway and at the front of their farm, Metts and Shepherd erected "Stop the Pipeline" signs, provided by environmental nonprofit Savannah Riverkeeper.
But their protest might not be enough.
Shepherd said they received court a summons from Elba Express Company’s lawyers last week, and the sisters are undecided about what to do next.
About half of the 33 landowners in Screven County have consented to surveys, Fore said last week.
Huggins' plan is not necessarily to oppose the pipeline, but to shift its route on his property. Instead of cutting through his pecan grove, he hopes the pipeline could go next to it.
"I feel like I really can't tell them, 'Hell no, you can't come,'" Huggins said. "I feel like they're gonna come anyway. So I'm just trying to [say] if you can move a little bit, help me a little bit, I'd be more helpful to you."
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