Judge denies KMI appeal for Palmetto Pipeline

Yay Savannah Riverkeeper, Greenlaw, and Push Back the Pipeline! Kinder Morgan go home to Houston: you can’t even sell your Palmetto Project. And take Spectra’s Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline with you.

JoAnn Merrigan, WSAV3, 1 March 2016, Judge says NO to Kinder Morgan appeal on Palmetto Pipeline,

The Savannah Riverkeeper says score one for property rights in Georgia when it comes to the proposed Palmetto Pipeline and the possible use of eminent domain.

A Fulton County Superior Court judge today ruled against Kinder Morgan (the company planning the pipeline.)…

Now the Riverkeeper reports that “after months of deliberation however, the judge has disagreed and that Tuesday’s decision spells relief for scores of Georgia landowners who were threatened with condemnation, as well as several environmental and advocacy groups who intervened.”

Company spokesman has said recently they are purs[u]ing the pipeline project.

But the loss in the appeal comes as lawmakers in both Georgia and South Carolina re moving forward with bill to stop the use of eminent domain by private petroleum companies. In Georgia for example, HB 1036, a bill to impose to impost a moratorium on the use of eminent domain passed in a House committee last week and will now move on to the Senate.

In South Carolina, there is similar legislation being pursued.

That Georgia eminent domain moratorium bill passed the Georgia House last night, last bill on the crossover day.

If Kinder Morgan could have built the pipeline without eminent domain, it wouldn’t be wasting its time and money suing. KMI was already trying to sell off that failed pipeline project. Mary Landers, Savannahnow.com, 28 January 2016, For sale: Stake in Kinder Morgan’s Palmetto Pipeline, Elba Island. Who will buy it now, when everyone knows it’s legally dead?

Dan Chapman, AJC, 1 March 2016, Judge denies east Georgia Palmetto pipeline,

“This is vindication that there is no need for a petroleum pipeline on Georgia’s coast that would justify a private company forcibly taking private property for private profit,” said Steve Caley, legal director for GreenLaw, the Atlanta-based nonprofit representing environmental groups.

Now to establish the same lack of need for Spectra Energy’s Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline aimed at Alabama, southwest Georgia, and Florida.

-jsq

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