WUNC 

WUNC Reporter, Rusty Jacobs, details the viewpoints of several North Carolina landowners located along the proposed route of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The following is an excerpt from eastern North Carolina resident, Matt Glover, who ensures that 'these easements aren't very intrusive.'

"Not all property owners or eastern North Carolina residents oppose the pipeline.

Matt Glover, whose family has settled with the ACP developers on a purchase price for easements across their property, has lived in Northampton County all his life, married a Northampton County girl and raised two daughters in this rural area.
 
“These easements aren’t very intrusive,” Glover said. “Once the pipeline is in the ground you can resume normal activities, you can’t build a home on top of it but you can certainly build a home near it with no ill effects,” he continued.

And Glover should know. His family’s property has an existing natural-gas distribution pipeline running across it—carrying natural gas from the Transco transmission line in the western Piedmont.

“This gives us a lot more comfort that maybe some people don’t have, the fact this has been here so long without any incidents,” Glover said.

Glover and his family own a construction company that is contracted to excavate and prepare the site for an ACP compressor station in Northampton County.

Aaron Ruby, the ACP spokesman, said once construction is complete, the pipeline, buried under three to five feet of soil, will hardly be noticeable to property owners.

“Because of the depth that we bury it, farmers can continue growing crops on the right of way, they can pasture livestock, transport equipment,” Ruby said.

And the developers will pay for disruptions caused by the construction phase.

“So if they’re unable to grow crops on the right-of-way during the two-year construction phase, we’re going to compensate them for that loss of revenue,” Ruby said.

Ruby said the pipeline will provide environmental as well as economic benefits.

“Natural gas produces half the carbon emissions of coal, it produces 80 to 90 percent fewer air emissions,” he said.

Ruby said the pipeline is  being built with the “best in class standards” for safety and environmental protection.

“We have multiple overlapping layers of protection in place,” he said, pointing out the pipeline would be constructed of almost one-inch-thick steel pipe covered with an epoxy coating.

“Both of those materials provide an inherent defense against corrosion and other external damage,” Ruby asserted.

CREDIT RUSTY JACOBS / WUNC"

Read the full article at WUNC