Brooks urges deep-dug pipeline

Published 5:15 am Sunday, April 20, 2014

Brooks County commissioners unanimously passed a resolution earlier this month encouraging Sabal Trail to bury its proposed natural gas pipeline two feet deeper than the three-feet requirements.

“We do a lot of farming over here, and that was the loudest concern was making sure we try to encourage Sabal Trail to make sure they went the extra mile to make sure their investment, and our citizens were protected,” said Justin DeVane, Brooks County administrator. “The pipeline itself is only traversing three of our five districts and all five of our commissioners were receiving concerns about it. So we wanted to make sure that we were doing all that we could to ensure that it would not impact any particular landowner, or resident as much as possible. We wanted to try and prevent any type of disturbances, and that was the action by the commissioners.”

The Sabal Trail Transmission is a proposed interstate natural gas pipeline project which would run a 36-inch pipeline for 474 miles from Tallapoosa County, Ala., through Georgia, to Florida

Power & Light’s Central Florida Hub near Orlando. This pipeline would run through Colquitt, Brooks, and Lowndes counties. Sabal Trail Transmission is a joint venture between Spectra Energy Corp. and NextEra Energy, Inc.

Brooks is the second South Georgia county to adopt a resolution trying to lessen the impact of the pipeline on its landowners.

“What we did was similar to what Colquit County did. We passed a resolution that has some wording in there that we’re urging them to use a five-foot minimal cover, instead of the three foot,” DeVane said. “It’s not a resolution saying they have to do it. It’s just a strong recommendation.”

Residents and the County Commission had two major concerns with the pipeline.

“We would feel better with the five-foot cover, as opposed to the three-foot cover because of the potential impact of a blast. That extra cover would help, but in addition to that, Brooks County has a heavy agricultural community. We have a lot of different farming techniques here. We’ve got some farmers that can plow two to three foot down into the field,” DeVane said.

“So, if you only have a three-foot coverage, at year one, after 10 years of farming, how much coverage will you have then?” DeVane said. “Those were our concerns. We felt like we need to ask them to go a little extra to make sure they were covered on their end just as the citizens and landowners were on their end.”

After, the Brooks County commissioners adopted the resolution, they submitted it to the the Federal Energy Regulation Commission’s website.