The Ridgeline natural gas pipeline project will begin this fall.
Enbridge Representative Art Haskins told Fentress County Commissioners the company is waiting to receive a water crossing permit from TDEC and a permit from the Corps of Engineers. Enbridge Project Supervisor Kurt Newman said clearing land will begin in Trousdale and Roane County and work towards Fentress County.
“It will be about six weeks before they hit Fentress County, about six weeks and they will be gone,” Newman said. “The clearing a couple of days behind them, we’ll start grading and ditching. It will be a week of activity and then a two or three-day lull in each area as crews work through.”
Haskins said the project will take about a year to complete. Haskins said Enbridge will pay the increased taxes to the county one year after the pipeline project is completed, regardless of whether gas is flowing or not.
“It’s an ad valorem tax, so it’s the value of the infrastructure as well as what we are transporting,” Haskins said. “The value of the infrastructure, the current pipe is 75 years old, and that’s been depreciated out a long time ago, so what we currently pay is the value of the gas that is transported. That will change as well once we have TVA as a customer, and the value goes up once they start using it, but the value of the infrastructure, it’s a very expensive project, and that value will again it will start out really high and then over the next 30 years some of that will decrease.”
The project will install the majority of the pipeline in the existing right-of-way to reduce the impacts on landowners. Haskins said Enbridge has almost all of the estimated 1,100 landowners on board with the project. Haskins said Enbridge is working to get all of the landowners who own land on the 122-mile-long pipeline system on board.
“We’re supplying final offer letters this last week to about 30 landowner groups,” Haskins said. “I say landowner groups because a couple of them are trusts, where there is a whole bunch of people, and a couple of them were unknown. Like we have been trying the whole time, and the county doesn’t know, and nobody really knows who owns that piece of property anymore, so a piece of property like that will for sure in through our legal system condemnation process, but most of the rest of them are being settled.”
Haskins said though there are only about 12 miles of pipeline that will be installed in Fentress County, there will still be a good number of workers who will be spending a lot of time and money at local businesses.
Newman said brush and timber gathered from clearing the land will be hauled off, and he will be willing to give merchantable timber to any of the local mills should they want it.
