After a two-year battle between a pipeline company and hundreds of landowners, a judge has ruled that work can go ahead on a 141-mile natural gas line from Joliet to southern Wisconsin.
Financial agreements with the landowners have not been worked out, but Guardian Pipeline expects the underground pipeline will be operating by November with enough capacity to heat 700,000 homes, according to company spokesman Jim Prescott.
Over the summer, the work will continue north from Joliet through Kendall, DeKalb and McHenry Counties in Illinois and Walworth and Jefferson Counties in Wisconsin. The pipeline will carry natural gas from other pipelines that meet at the “Chicago Hub” near Joliet to markets in southeastern Wisconsin.
Although Guardian Pipeline does not have customers for the gas in northern Illinois, Prescott said the pipeline could one day be used to help meet energy demands in the far northwest suburbs and elsewhere along the route.
Some of the property owners affected by the pipeline have complained that the company’s use of their land could diminish their ability to cash in on that development boom.
“It stinks that the federal government can grant permission for a public, for-profit company to come on your property so that they can make money,” said developer Joe Buralli, whose company owns property in Harvard that the pipeline is projected to cross.
A federal permit gives Guardian eminent domain rights that allow it to use property even if owners don’t want the pipeline under their land. Guardian isn’t buying the property along its route, just making a one-time payment for easement rights, which prevent structures from being built within 25 feet on either side of the pipeline.
U.S. District Judge James B. Moran ruled April 5 that Guardian can begin burying the 36-inch pipe, even though the amount it will pay for easement rights has not been determined in many cases. For properties on which Guardian does not reach a voluntary agreement, a commission will determine the amount, Moran’s ruling says.
Landowners estimate the total should come to $22 million, but Guardian has estimated $4.4 million. The project’s total cost is $238 million.
Buralli said he has plans to build apartments, homes and commercial developments on property on the west side of Harvard in northern McHenry County. A natural gas pipeline through the middle of that property will make his project more difficult, he said.
“In some ways, it’s an economic `chicken and egg,'” said Prescott, the Guardian spokesman. “The demand for more natural gas comes from development.”
Many farmers remain concerned about how the project will affect crop production. Harry Alten, president of the McHenry County Farm Bureau, said digging up farmland to bury pipelines leaves the soil less fertile for crops.
Alten said farmers also are concerned that Guardian’s plan to bury the pipeline 4 feet deep is not deep enough to guarantee that agricultural equipment won’t strike it, especially if erosion becomes a factor. They prefer a depth of 5 feet.
Prescott said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the 4-foot depth when it issued the pipeline’s permit.
“We really haven’t seen any compelling evidence or justification to go to 5 feet,” said Prescott, who acknowledged that doing so would increase the project’s cost but could not estimate how much.
Farmers also worry that the amount Guardian wants to pay for easement rights won’t cover the potential value of their land to developers. Many farmers are selling their land at huge profits to developers like Buralli.
“Everyone has to be concerned about that,” said Dan Leifel, a lawyer with the Illinois Farm Bureau.
