Pipeline company files suit against W.Va. landowners

REGISTER-HERALD ^ | Wednesday, April 1, 2015 | Tina Alvey

[FewsOrange]

Pipeline company files suit against W.Va. landowners

By Tina Alvey REGISTER-HERALD REPORTER | Posted: Wednesday, April 1, 2015 6:30 pm

A company seeking to run a massive natural gas pipeline through the state has followed through on a threat to take legal action against West Virginia landowners who have thus far refused to allow access to their properties.

Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC, (MVP) filed a petition Friday in U.S. District Court in Beckley asking federal authorities to force three corporations and more than 100 other property owners residing in 10 West Virginia counties to permit the developer's agents to survey their land in order to to lay out a route for the 300-mile pipeline.

The lawsuit maintains that each of the named respondents was contacted with a request for consent to survey and that each respondent "failed or refused to permit MVP (to) enter the respondents' properties and/or prevented MVP from completing the necessary survey."

If approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the pipeline will provide a conduit for natural gas from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia.

The suit filed against the 103 individuals and three corporations relies upon the doctrine of eminent domain — a power that is given to government and to private companies in certain, limited circumstances, to forcibly purchase private property for a project that serves the public good. MVP asserts that its proposed gas pipeline fits the definition and that "it is necessary to enter the respondents' properties to survey (in order to obtain) necessary rights-of-way, obtain a FERC Certificate and construct the pipeline."

Accordingly, MVP asks the court to issue a declaratory judgment that the pipeline's agents may enter onto the properties in question and to grant preliminary and permanent injunctions ordering landowners to cease barring MVP from accessing their properties.

The suit names 103 people living in Braxton, Nicholas, Monongalia, Harrison, Lewis, Greenbrier, Monroe, Mercer, Summers and Webster counties as respondents. Also on the list of respondents are the Lake Floyd Club, a golf and country club in Harrison County, with a principal corporate office in Bristol; Green Valley Coal Co., with a principal corporate office in Leivasy; and White Pine Inc., a real estate firm with a Lewisburg Post Office box listed as its principal corporate address.

• • •

An MVP attorney, Stephen E. Hastings, sent letters to landowners in February warning that continued resistance to the pipeline company's demands for access to properties for "surveys, appraisals, tests and studies" would likely result in legal action. Hastings gave the property owners a deadline of March 9 for compliance.

Three couples who received letters from Hastings filed preemptive lawsuits against MVP last month, asking circuit courts in Monroe and Summers counties to prevent the developer's agents from entering their properties.

Plaintiffs in the Monroe County suit are Bryan C. and Doris W. McCurdy of Greenville, and plaintiffs in the Summers suit are Thomas T. and Susan A. Bouldin and Donald R. and Mary Ann Milam, all of whom have Alderson mailing addresses but who own property near Pence Springs, in Summers County.

As of Friday, both of those suits had also been transferred to federal court, upon a motion by MVP. In the notices of removal filed in Monroe and Summers counties, MVP asserts that federal authorities have jurisdiction "because the matter in controversy is between citizens of different states and exceeds the sum or value of... ($75,000) exclusive of interest and costs."

MVP is a Delaware limited liability company with a principal office address in Pittsburgh, Pa., while the McCurdys, Bouldins and Milams are all residents of West Virginia.

Appalachian Mountain Advocates senior attorney, Derek O. Teaney, who represents the three couples in their suits against MVP, told The Register-Herald when those actions were filed that MVP does not meet the standard of "public use" set by State Code for eminent domain to apply, because the natural gas carried by the pipeline will not be used by West Virginians. There has been no indication by the developer that the line will do anything other than transport gas from point A to point B, with no distribution to intervening communities or individual customers along the way.

Teaney argues in the suits, "Because the Pipeline will not be put to a public use, Defendant is not invested with the power of eminent domain." And, because MVP is not invested with that power, the suits maintain that MVP "does not have a right to enter Plaintiffs' Property for any purpose."

• • •

The warning letters that were mailed out by Hastings on MVP's behalf came in for a measure of criticism during a Monroe County Commission meeting Wednesday morning.

With a nod to the lawsuits filed by the three Monroe and Summers county couples, Commissioner Shane Ashley turned his sights on the Mountain Valley Pipeline developers.

"They're threatening our people in our county," Ashley fumed. "I'm concerned about them pushing our people around."

He said MVP agents have been driving stakes to facilitate surveys through the middle of residential neighborhoods "without telling people what they're doing." Acknowledging that explanations are not required by law, Ashley said MVP should nonetheless make an effort to allay concerns that entire subdivisions could be condemned to make way for the pipeline.

MVP developers will stage an "open house" at the Union Church of God activity building Monday from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

[Rodamala]

If it is just surveyors... in most states, by law, you must grant access to Professional Land Surveyors. I know that most railroads charge an "access fee" and then a charge for any flagman protection required to protect against trains.

[Milton Miteybad]

Maybe, but I doubt it. You'd have to see a set of alignment sheets to say one way or another, and you can only come up with those after a survey.

There isn't much harm that will come from a survey, which may reveal surface hazards that would render placement of a pipeline infeasible. They want to stay away from residential areas as much as possible, and that's the kind of surface hazard the survey is intended to identify.

As noted before, you hardly ever find a landowner who likes the idea of a pipeline crossing their tract, and this would especially be true in an area like West Virginia, where pipes in the ground aren't as common as they are in the Southwest. But once you explain to them that the operator will need to cross, but they can put the line in a place that's least likely to interfere with their enjoyment of the surface, they usually come around, especially if they have a great amount of input as to the placement of the line. They still may not like the idea, but after the construction is complete and the area is re-seeded, they can't tell anything is even there.

[TigersEye]

You'd have to see a set of alignment sheets to say one way or another, and you can only come up with those after a survey.

Yes, you would.

[TigersEye]

...8” pipes and 2-3ft offsets...

I missed that. I'll re-read the article.

[Svartalfiar]

There’s no reason eminent domain should ever be able to be used by a private company. The only time it has any kind of validity is for national defense, and that’s a high bar to meet.

[Trailerpark Badass]

That’s from my experience mapping gas lines. These may be different, and it was 15 years ago, so I may have it wrong.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

You live in West Virginia. Sell them the mineral rights, they say, and they tell you that all they are going to do is mine a little coal, they won’t disturb you in any way. Then comes the sheriff and some deputies onto your property to evict you from your land because your farm and house sit in the path of the only reasonable spot for railway access to the main seam.

In the end, you and your family and worldly possessions are in a horse-drawn wagon headed for Missouri because its relatively flat and you figure that you won’t ever have to be bothered again with coal companies digging up your property.

A gas line would be a little more quiet, but its still the principle of the thing.

[TigersEye]

If it's an 8" pipe underground that's one thing. But not all gas pipelines are 8"s or underground.

The article doesn't really say.

[Trailerpark Badass]

True.

[stylin19a]

Not sure why this is a federal issue.
It probably should go through the state courts first.

The landowners may want to point to
Landowners vs. Transcanada keystone pipline, LP, and Andrew Craig.

http://boldnebraska.org/victory-for-landowners-as-court-grants-injunction-halting-eminent-domain-by-transcanada/

[TigersEye]

I’m not against progress. The pipeline has to go somewhere and it’s going to cross some people’s properties.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

How do you compensate someone for land that’s been in a family since the revolution?

[Malsua]

There is a 24” gas pipeline that runs through my town put in years ago in northern nj. There was a 75 foot wide clearing above it. In the past few years, they added
Second, bigger pipeline next to it. They cleared 100 yards of trees that had been there for 75+years. Look at Google maps or earth. Looks like a monster from a godzilla movie made a huge path across the area.

If that was my land in wv, i’d resist as well Despite it being futile.

[bert]

Well, regarding permission to survey.

Since the preliminary survey on Google Earth, you need to follow up on the ground. Access will cost you $5 per lineal foot

[thackney]

The breadth and length of a pipeline might take 80% to 90% of some properties.

They don't route the pipelines through existing subdivisions, they go around the most populated sections. That is partly why the survey is done first. Pretty normal to route through the fields away from the homes.

[thackney]

If it's an 8" pipe underground that's one thing.

It will be underground. The photo you posted is of the pipe before it is laid in the trenches. Several sidebooms like what you pictured will walk it over. Normally done in roller slings to allow a continues transition of moving the line done while the side booms move forward.

Your picture is from before this step. The are lifting the sections to be welded together (see weld shack in background). When finished, this will all be smooth field planted over or pasture land once again.

[TigersEye]

Subdivisions? Fields? Ever been to West Virginia? lol

[TigersEye]

As I said...

...not all pipelines are buried.

[thackney]

This pipeline is buried.

Your first picture is from the Pakistan to China pipeline.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/594264/new-stakeholders-ip-gas-pipeline-could-be-extended-to-china/

In the US, and most modern countries, major pipelines are not installed above ground except for extreme reasons, such as protecting permafrost.

Your second picture, shows one of the reasons why. Pipeline expand and contract with temperature changes. Exposed in the air, the small expansion and contraction of steels from minimum to maximum ambient condition adds up when you measure in miles. Above ground lines require expansions loops, greater expense in maintenance and greater exposure to damage.

I'm not sure what your third picture pipe is from. Oil/gas pipelines do not use that type of jointing. Perhaps it is a aquaduct?

Regards, major oil/gas lines are nearly always buried. Our country is covered in pipelines and most people never even know they are there. A couple hundred feet from my house, a few run through our subdivision. Those pipelines went in first and the subdivision was built around them. It provides a nice continuous green pathway, we get deer that move through the neighborhood partly because of them.

[TigersEye]

This pipeline is buried.

How do you know that? The article doesn't say anything about it and you don't provide any proof either.