Residents see plans for a huge natural pipeline that will run through North Carolina
FAYETTEVILLE (WTVD) -- Residents of Fayetteville gave their two cents on a controversial natural gas pipeline plan for the Sandhills Tuesday evening.
The proposed multi-billion dollar natural gas transmission pipeline would run through Cumberland and Robeson counties.
Clifford Bastine looked at the future Monday night, and did not like what he saw.
"They do not care. They just want to put in a gas line and walk away," said Bastine. "We have to suffer the consequences forever."
Dominion Resources, along with Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, and other companies want to build a 500 mile pipeline from the gas fields of West Virginia to the farm lands of Robeson County.
"This is huge for North Carolina", said Dominion Resources Spokesman Jim Norvelle. "It's big economic factors, lots of jobs."
Along the way, the 36-inch pipeline will pass through Halifax, Nash, Wilson, Johnston, Sampson and Cumberland Counties, before ending Robeson County.
Tuesday night, 350 people, many of them landowners, got to see the pipeline's route at a public meeting in Fayetteville, and its impact on their lives.
"They told me it would take a year to cross my property, but after that I can still cultivate my land," said Wilson County property owner Doug Fulhum.
Norvelle said the environmental impact will be minimum.
"This pipeline will be buried underground about 3 to 5 feet with soil on top, and the farmers can grow crops, raise livestock, even build a road over it to get-farm equipment from one field to another," said Norvelle.
Not everyone is happy with the project. Several property owners said the gas line easement will cut their farms in half. Others like Bastine said the easement will make his property "useless."
Bastine said his property is already crisscrossed with electric lines, and a gas pipeline. Another easement he said will barely leave him room to build a home.
"That is too much to bear," said Bastine. "That is more than double Jeopardy. "
A gas company spokesman said the natural gas that flows through the line will be pumped from fracking wells in West Virginia and Ohio. They said it should not have a negative impact on the burgeoning fracking industry in North Carolina.
Gas company officials hope to have the pipeline in operation by 2018.
