Sabal Trail buys option on new compressor site

ALBANY — Despite a proposal by Sabal Trail Transmission to move the proposed site of a compressor station that was to have been located along Newton Road, one of the county landowners who has opposed from its inception construction of a natural gas pipeline that would run through a portion of Dougherty County says the action is little more than a smokescreen.

Dinorah Hall said the proposed new location of the compressor station, one of five along the projected 460-mile pipeline that would transmit up to a billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, still poses danger to a large number of people in southwest Dougherty County.

“This is not good news,” Hall said of Sabal Trail’s announced plan to look at another option for the location of the compressor station. “This is simply Sabal trying to mollify the community. This compressor station would still be located within close proximity to the Winterwood and Indian Creek neighborhoods and a trailer park that includes 105 trailers.

“(The new site) is close to two schools, a church, the fairgrounds, where there are several events. It’s just not acceptable. Sabal is doing nothing but rotating the location. This compressor station can still cause a lot of devastation for a lot of people.”

Sabal Trail officials announced that they had purchased option on land “just within the city limits of Albany in a heavily wooded area” roughly five miles “upstream” (to the north) of the Newton Road site.

Andrea Grover, a spokeswoman for the energy company that is planning the $3.5 billion project that will transmit natural gas from central Alabama to central Florida, said Sabal Trail representatives have been seeking community input on the new proposed site for the past several days.

“Sabal Trail has been seeking the community’s thoughts and questions as to the new proposed compressor site, as well as ensuring they are aware of and included in the FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) environmental review,” Grover said in an email to The Albany Herald.

Grover said the new site addresses a number of community concerns, including:

— The nearest homes are farther away than the ones at the Newton Road location;

— The entire compressor station will be buffered by existing trees and will be at a lower elevation;

— The proposed new site is farther away from the city’s water supply;

— The plant would be farther away from busy Lily Pond Road;

— The concern about proximity to the Southwest Georgia Regional Airport runway would be eliminated;

— The closest noise receptor off-property is 2,000 feet away, more than 1,000 feet farther than at the Newton Road site;

— The air permitting remains a minor source of emissions.

Grover also noted that property taxes paid to Dougherty County would be approximately $1.3 million per year and, with the new site falling within the city limits, the city would share in the tax revenue.

“While we cannot move the compressor station out of the county, I believe this location addresses many of the concerns we’ve heard from the community,” Grover wrote.

Hall, for one, was not mollified.

“They are simply trying to confuse the issue with this announcement,” the landowner said. “What I don’t understand is why they want to inflict additional hardships on such a poor community.”

Hall and other landowners were handed a setback Friday when Dougherty Superior Court Judge Denise Marshall ruled that they could not keep Sabal Trail employees from coming onto their land to conduct surveys connected with the pipeline.

Marshall ruled: “Sabal Trail has the right under Georgia law to enter the properties for purposes of conducting civil, environmental, cultural resource, boundary, geotechnical and geophysical survey activities or any other necessary examinations in connection with the proposed Sabal Trail Project and may do so immediately.”

Marshall ruled Sabal Trail’s motion for access to the property of owners who’d refused to allow it is permissible under Georgia’s eminent domain law and ordered in her ruling: “Sabal Trail’s motion is granted and that defendants Rose Marie Matthew, Nanart Properties LP, Earl P. Spurlock, John T. Phillips III, Gary W. Hall, Albany Farm LLC, Annie Kate Walker, their respective agents and those persons in active concert or participation with them who receive actual notice of this order by personal service or otherwise are hereby enjoined until further order of this court from preventing or interfering in any manner with Sabal Trail’s entry, through its employees, contractors or other representatives, onto the properties.”