Energy company trying to condemn land from reticent property owners

COLUMBIA, SC -- A major energy corporation is trying to condemn private property near Columbia for a natural gas pipeline that would cross through rural communities between the Congaree and Wateree rivers.

In federal court filings last month, Dominion Carolina Gas Transmission asked for permission to take about 10 tracts that it has been unable to obtain for the 28-mile, $36-million natural gas pipeline project in Richland County.

While the company says it had no choice in going to court, property owners are upset with Dominion’s action.

Some have contacted lawyers and are considering whether to challenge the energy company as it seeks federal court approval to obtain use of their property. Some don’t want the intrusion of a pipeline. Others aren’t satisfied with the price the company has offered to pay.

“I think they are probably going to take my land,’’ said Larry Faulkenberry, who said Dominion has been unwilling to meet his terms for about 25 acres near Gills Creek and Bluff Road. “We’ll go to court. I’ve always found if something is reasonable, usually people on a jury are pretty reasonable people, too.’’

The property owners whose land Dominion is seeking to use are among the last remaining holdouts in the company’s effort to acquire the rights to more than 120 parcels for the natural gas pipeline. The 8-inch pipe would send natural gas from a connection in Calhoun County near the Congaree River to International Paper Co. in the Wateree community of Richland County.

Some holdouts who have not struck agreements with Dominion are big landowners whose property includes private hunting grounds or farmland being held for future development. Others are small landowners whose yards would be sliced by the pipeline, court records show.

Faulkenberry said Dominion offered to pay him $66,000 for his property, but he wants a signed agreement assuring further compensation if the pipeline proves to have a greater impact on his land than originally anticipated. Faulkenberry owns about 1,200 acres off Bluff Road that he bought last year for a future development project.

Etta N. Mann, who owns land with relatives off U.S. 601 near International Paper Co., said she received an offer from the company for some of the property, but still has questions.

Mann said she wasn’t sure how the pipeline would affect the property, part of an old farm her grandparents worked when she was a child. Dominion wants to acquire a fraction of the 37.5 acres, court records show.

“I would want them to do what is fair, what is right,’’ Mann said. “How are they running this through’’ the family’s property?

Dominion Carolina is a division of regional energy giant Dominion Resources, one of Virginia’s major power suppliers. The company, which has increased its presence in South Carolina, now is in a fight to extend a pipeline from West Virginia, through Virginia and into North Carolina.

That project, which dwarfs the one in Richland County, has drawn opposition from property owners in the line’s path and from environmental groups worried about possible dangers. Environmentalists showed up at the company’s annual meeting, which was held in Columbia in May, to protest.

In Richland County, federal court records show that in addition to Mann’s property, Dominion also wants to condemn property from the FIATP timber company, retired Columbia doctor Robert Bunch and Rendell Campbell, who owns property near Bunch between Congaree Road and Garner’s Ferry Road in Lower Richland. The pipeline also would run through at least two yards near St. Matthews Baptist Church, records show.

FIATP representatives could not be reached. Bunch and Campbell declined comment.

“I would love to talk in detail about it, but these people with the gas line have, by serving papers, forced us to hire lawyers,’’ Bunch said, noting that his attorney “told me not to talk to anybody right now.’’

State Rep. Kirkman Finlay, R-Richland, is one property owner who has not struck a deal with Dominion, but who said he also has not received notice the company was seeking to condemn his property off of Bluff Road near Gills Creek.

It’s unclear how the landowners’ resistance could affect plans for the pipeline. The company wants to start drilling beneath the Congaree River next month so it can extend the pipe below the riverbed. The company says it expects the pipeline to be in service in the fall.

Company spokeswoman Kristen Beckham expressed confidence that Dominion will gain approvals necessary to launch the project.

“Dominion remains willing to work with individual landowners to reach an agreement that satisfies all parties,’’ she said in an email to The State newspaper.

She said the company has reached agreement with 90 percent of the landowners along the pipeline’s path. But in the absence of deals with other property owners, “we are now taking the permitted steps to obtain the remaining property rights.’’

Some landowners whose property was not condemned initially had concerns about the project. But they have since reached agreements with Dominion. They include St. Matthews Baptist Church in Eastover and the Belle Grove hunting preserve off Bluff Road near the Westinghouse nuclear fuel plant, according to documents filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

All were upset about the pipeline as first proposed last summer, saying it would disrupt their property.

Andrew Washington, a deacon at St. Matthews Baptist, said Dominion offered enough money to mollify the church’s concerns. He did not remember the exact amount.

“It disrupted our plans, but they reimbursed us with what we want, so we are well pleased with it,’’ Washington said.

Monty Todd, a lawyer and member of Belle Grove, said the company agreed to move the pipeline to the side of the club’s property, rather than running it through the center. Todd said he could not disclose the amount Dominion ultimately paid for the sliver of land through Belle Grove because of a confidentiality agreement.

Dominion’s condemnation proceedings in Richland County come at a time of increasing concern about for-profit energy companies seizing land.

State legislators recently banned private petroleum companies from using the powers of “eminent domain” for oil pipelines after an outcry in western South Carolina and eastern Georgia against a Kinder Morgan petroleum project. Many property owners complained that private, for-profit companies should not be allowed to condemn property for projects that don’t serve a substantial public need. By law, companies or governments that use eminent domain powers to condemn land must compensate a property owner with a fair price.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the need for the Richland pipeline June 2, saying the project would have “minimal impacts on land owners’’ and limited impacts on the environment. In this case, Dominion is seeking to use small pieces of larger tracts people own in Richland County.

Dominion’s plan for the Richland County project, in addition to landowner concerns, has sparked scrutiny from state and federal environmental agencies concerned about the pipeline’s impact on wetlands, wildlife and fish. One of the biggest issues is whether drilling below the Congaree River for the pipeline will hurt populations of sturgeon, federally protected fish that swim from the ocean inland at certain times of the year.

Beckham, the Dominion spokeswoman, said the company had resolved questions from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies.

While few environmental groups expressed concern about the Columbia project, Upstate Forever is leery of a Dominion plan to run a pipeline from the Spartanburg area through parts of central South Carolina. The environmental group says the pipeline potentially will affect a sensitive area of forests and creeks in Spartanburg County.

Since arriving in Columbia, Dominion has sought to work with elected leaders, outdoors groups and the U.S. Army. Dominion and a company foundation recently donated $15,000 to help upgrade the Palmetto Trail, a walking path that will one day stretch from the mountains to the coast. The money was for work on the Fort Jackson section of the trail in Columbia.

This story was originally published July 7, 2016 at 8:19 PM with the headline "Energy company trying to condemn land from reticent property owners."