ALBANY — The late-July one-sentence news release was innocuous enough, making its way across various area news desks without so much as a second look.
But that release — “Spectra Energy Corp. today announced that Sabal Trail Transmission LLC, a joint venture of Spectra Energy and NextEra Energy Inc., has been awarded a 465-mile interstate natural gas pipeline project by Florida Power & Light Company to provide transportation services for their power generation needs beginning in May 2017.” — is the impetus behind a growing local grassroots movement to stop Spectra from bringing the pipeline through Dougherty County.
“This is about our land, protected land that’s evolved over a lifetime,” one northwest Dougherty County landowner contacted by Houston-based Spectra Energy said. “The harm that would come from running this pipeline through that land would be irreparable.”
The company is in the planning phase of the estimated $3 billion project that would bring a natural gas pipeline from Tallapoosa County in central Alabama to Osceola County in northeast Florida. Spectra is considering a number of routes for the Sabal Trail project, one of which would take it through much of Dougherty County. That route would include 55 miles of pipeline in Alabama, 196 in Georgia and 214 in Florida.
As word of the proposed project has spread locally, mostly by property owners contacted by Spectra discussing possible rights-of-way acquisition, many have contacted local government officials expressing concern. Dougherty County Commissioner Ewell Lyle broached the subject briefly at the commission’s Monday meeting.
via Albany Herald | Natural gas pipeline could come through Dougherty County.
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