Wednesday, June 26, 2024
The Texas Station Event Center in Gatesville was recently the location where DeLa Express hosted an informative gathering for residents of Coryell County to learn about a proposed pipeline that could possibly be passing through the county and would impact area properties.
Chris Thiele, a senior vice-president of Moss Lake Logistics, said, “We’re in the very early stages. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has a permit process that we have to go through, but they also have a process where we have to go out and collect information from the community, stake holders, and landowners, ahead of even submitting the permit application, that’s where we are right now. We’re in the pre-filing application process.”
Thiele said they would like to submit their application for the pipeline in February of next year. “That will probably take about a year or so to review and so we would probably be looking at getting the permit in the first or second quarter of 2026. Then you would talk construction about mid 2026 and operation in 2028. We are very early in the process.”
Thiele said that so far, informative meetings have been held in eight towns and they’re going to fifteen towns and hope to have seventeen open houses.
The proposed pipeline would transport natural gas from the Permian Basin in west Texas across the state to Lake Charles, Louisiana. Thiele said the length of the main line would be around 690 miles and that the diameter of the pipe would be 42 inches.
DeLa Express plans to offer 2 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas. In addition, the pipeline will feature five lateral pipelines and eight compressor stations, one of which is proposed to be located in Coryell County.
There has been some opposition to the pipeline by county landowners who have stated that it would destroy portions of their property, hurt land values, and sometimes impede access to and from their homes.
When asked about opposition, Thiele replied, “I would say about one group and one person that at a few of our meetings that I would call opposition. Otherwise, it’s been very productive, and we’ve had good conversations with members of these groups and a lot of people have a lot of questions, so, it’s really the opportunity to have landowners who can look at detailed maps.”
Thiele was also asked about the possibility of imminent domain, and he replied, “That is a possibility, but of course we want to try to work with landowners and reach a fair agreement to allow us to access their land, to put the pipeline on their land. There will be financial offers made to the landowners and the imminent domain only comes in if we cannot reach an agreement, but we will try to avoid that if we can.”
Those interested in providing comments about the proposed project, call 832-924-5011, or email DeLaExpressProject@erm.com.
