This is how it works at the informational meeting held by the UGI/PennEast Pipeline representatives at the Flagstaff Restaurant in Jim Thorpe. First you have to go past Jim Thorpe police who have been hired by the pipeline people to keep out the press or any demonstrators. One of the policemen has his hand near his gun. Your friend who early received a letter telling him the pipeline would cross his land but did not get an invitation is escorted from the building.
You sign in at the front desk. You go to a computer. Two young guys who have never seen your land, know nothing about your great-grandfather who cleared the land, or your grandfather who farmed it with horses, or your father and his two brothers who made a living from it, or you who moved back from California to live on it and preserve it in perpetuity and get a centennial farm designation for it–those two nice young men show you a Google map with a 400 foot wide corridor where the pipeline will cut across your farm.
You don’t have a choice. You will be subject to eminent domain. You will get a one-time payment even if the pipeline company makes money for decades. You will not be reimbursed for loss of property values. You will not be given money for higher insurance rates. Even though this is the first time you have seen a detailed map, the comment period will not be extended. You may not put a shed or chicken coop on the pipeline. The pipeline will not be removed if it is no longer used.
Then you are shown some slides about how benign the pipeline corridor really is. There’s no danger, you are told, from explosions. The land will be revegetated, although no trees will be allowed to grow on in the permanent corridor.
Everyone is polite and understanding. Then you are fed lunch. I hope the pipeline people understand why I left without eating.
How is the pipeline company going to keep trees from the "Pipeline right of way?" Are they going to spray it with the equivalent of agent orange?
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing it would be done from an aircraft or helicopter. If so there would be a drift of the spay onto the neighboring land. I think we all know the results of the use of agent orange in Vietnam. Talk to the many veterans who were exposed to it.
Big oil and the chemical companies make money and the people get the shaft!
The pipeline company says it won't spray. On the other hand, the pipeline company says lots of things. I know that the electric companies spray along their right of way, leaving brown dead swaths. I have a feeling that the pipeline companies will do the same thing.
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