Gas line offers more benefit than damage
Published May 1, 2015
Editorial by Fayetteville Observer, April 30, 2015.
There is no win-win solution to this problem. Someone's going to lose. The battle pits landowners and environmentalists against the energy giants planning to run a high-pressure gas-transmission line through North Carolina, roughly following I-95's path. The line would enter the state from Virginia and end in Robeson County.
The proposed route in Virginia and West Virginia has drawn the most intense opposition from environmental groups. Here, opponents are mostly landowners whose property would be compromised - many say ruined - by the project.
Duke will own 40 percent, using much of the gas to fuel its eastern North Carolina power plants. Duke has opened five natural-gas-powered plants in the last four years and has shut down seven of its 14 coal-burning plants.
That's one of the big benefits of the new gas line. Coal plants spew the most air pollution and leave dangerous, heavy-metal-laden ash that threatens public water supplies in parts of North Carolina. Natural gas is the least-polluting fossil fuel and it leaves no dangerous residue.
Public health and environmental quality are best served by shutting down coal plants and substituting natural gas.
Many environmentalists would say it's time to go one more step and increase utilities' use of renewable power sources like wind and solar. We'd like to see that happen too, but the renewable-energy sector isn't big enough to pick up the load. It will be many years before it is.
Environmental groups warn that the gas line will disrupt important natural areas along its path. And property owners are alarmed about the way their land - and their ability to use it - will be disturbed. They're especially incensed that the gas line owners can use eminent domain to take the rights to use their land.
Some local opponents held a press conference outside the Cumberland County Courthouse Tuesday afternoon, pointing to the "long-term effects on the environment and our property." Their fears are valid.
But we also look at the gas line as a potential fuel for new industry. It may foster economic development in places that need it most, like Robeson County.
We do hope the gas line's owners will do all they can to avoid environmental damage - and that government regulators will encourage that path. But we see the gas line doing far more good than harm.
May 3, 2015 at 7:30 pm
Norm Kelly says:
Environmentalists are a darn hard group to please! They want to shut down coal fired plants because it destroys the environment. They want to stand in the way of replacing coal with cleaner natural gas. Talk about a lose-lose group!
What's an alternative? Nuclear? Environmentalists would explode with that suggestion. Literally.
Nuclear has the down side of producing a 'bad' biproduct as well. So, natural gas seems to be the best alternative. Except for environmentalist, global warming, zealots. Since it's not possible to please this group, it's time to ignore them! Leave them in the dust, fuming and fussing because that's what they're going to do anyway. So un-invite them from all of the planning meetings. Un-invite them from all of the regulatory hearings. Un-invite them very publicly from everything revolving around bringing natural gas to the new power plants. They will fuss & fume when publicly un-invited, snubbed as it were, but since they have repeatedly PROVEN that they can't be pleased, they MUST be ignored, pushed out of the way. And progress MUST take place without them. Cuz it's obvious that progress won't be made with them! The environmentalist wackos, global warming zealots, don't like any alternative other than all of us living in caves again, so since they don't live in the real world, let them stay in their make-believe as a small, self-sufficient group. Eating bean sprouts and dandelion greens. It's healthy!
