NORWICH – A controversy is brewing between landowners who have leased their property to natural gas companies and those who have not, and it’s not over the potential environmental hazards.
Nornew Inc.’s proposed pipeline is the divider.
Plans are to connect the company’s existing pipeline - located at county Rt. 16 in Plymouth - with a new transmission line heading south through the towns of Preston, Oxford, Coventry and Bainbridge, and on down to connect with the Millennium pipeline in Broome County.
The Norway-based Norse Energy subsidiary already pumps natural gas north to the Tennessee pipeline. Both the Millennium - which is still partly under construction - and the Tennessee are giant pipelines that carry natural gas from west to east in the north and the south of New York.
Nornew’s pipeline would be the only connector between the two transmission corridors in New York and would be the company’s “claim to fame,” according to Oxford Landowners Group President Bryant LaTourette.
Nornew has been the primary player to target the subsurface layers of natural gas underneath Chenango County. It is one of many energy companies currently leasing rights and/or drilling in the Appalachian River Basin for what’s believed to be the mother load of formations: the Marcellus Shale geologic formation. Approximately 50 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is believed to be stored there, enough to handle the entire country’s energy needs for at least two years.
The gas rush has spawned outcries of environmental pollution to water supplies because the frac’ing fluid used to drill contains unknown and potentially hazardous elements. Regulations have resulted and others are still pending, but now is the time to turn the attention to pipeline easements, said LaTourette.
“Everybody is so focused on environment, the gas, and bonus payments pertaining to the well when equally important would be the pipeline easement. This is the most pressing issue at this time,” he said.
LaTourette and others being approached for easements are concerned that Nornew’s line would deter and quite possibly prohibit other natural gas companies from bidding on unleased land for drilling. While the number of acres leased in Chenango County that pertain to the natural gas industry is unknown, large swaths of land are already leased.
“Nornew is the only one that is establishing a transmission line. We want them to be able to get the gas to market, but we also need them to be open to competitor’s wells,” LaTourette said.
Company spokesman Dennis Holbrook told those attending a roundtable discussion at The Evening Sun Aug. 29 that the company would maintain exclusive rights to its pipeline.
James Garruto of Oxford, whose family owns more than 300 acres, has been solicited to lease land for drilling and right-of-way easements, but has yet to sign.
“Clearly, it’s going to limit the competition if Nornew does in fact lock up all the adjoining property with leases and also with pipeline easements. It’s going to be difficult for another company to come in. We will then have to negotiate with Nornew,” he said.
A member of the Oxford Landowners Group, Garruto said he is waiting to see what the group does before leasing. “I want to keep my options open,” he said. “I may end up negotiating the lease with them for a gas well, and then would want them to have the pipeline.”
Preston landowner Steven Palmatier, who already has a well on his land and has signed an easement for Nornew’s pipeline, said other gas companies could build pipelines, too.
“I didn’t lease them all of my land for their pipeline. Another company could propose to build one on my land and I’d say have at it. The market will decide. It all depends on how much gas is here and whose got the leases,” he said.
Regardless of the controversy, Palmatier said there are bigger fish to fry at present, like Susquehanna River Basin’s authority to regulate water and Wall Street’s unprecedented losses this week.
“With the price of oil going down and natural gas prices uncertain, at some point, does Nornew really want to dig another hole?” he asks.
LaTourette said he planned to form a committee to help educate landowners about right-of-way agreements.
Meanwhile, members of the Chenango County Agriculture, Buildings and Grounds Committee meeting on Thursday discussed Nornew’s pipeline pathway. Supervisor Peter C. Flanagan, D-Preston, who is also leading a special natural gas committee, asked whether the county’s highway department had permitted easements under county roads.
“Shouldn’t we know as a county where they are going to lay the pipeline?” Flanagan asked before making a motion to invite Nornew executives to a committee meeting.
DPW Director Randy Gibbon said while seismic testing along right-of-ways on all but one county road had been permitted, he had not been approached for pipeline easement permits. The process for permitting them is “complicated” and “lengthy,” he said.
Both Flanagan and Supervisor Rick Chase, D-Bainbridge, said they believed the pipeline would be built soon.
“Easement permits under county roads aren’t going to get done in a timely fashion, I can tell you that,” Gibbon said.
Flanagan’s motion was seconded and passed.