Pipeline foes to sue over bird
After a defeat in the courtroom, opponents of a $2 billion natural gas pipeline though the Texas Hill Country are turning to an endangered songbird to halt the project.
The Hays County Commissioners Court on Tuesday voted to join a challenge under the Endangered Species Act to halt the project, arguing that Kinder Morgan’s proposed Permian Highway Pipeline would destroy habitat of the golden-cheeked warbler. With an estimated population of 27,000 left in the wild, the endangered songbird nests in the dense juniper woodlands of the Texas Hill Country but winters in the jungles of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
Hays County, Travis Audubon Society and three other plaintiffs plan to file a notice of intent to sue Kinder Morgan, the Army Corps
of Engineers, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in order to compel an extended federal environmental study about impact of the 430-mile pipeline on the warbler’s habitat, which has dwindled from urbanization, suburbanization and agricultural practices on both sides of the border.
“We have concerns with this pipeline’s path and the habitat it will affect within Hays County and we’re concerned about the lack of plans to mitigate for those impacts,” Hays County Commissioner Lon Shell said during a hearing Tuesday.
Kinder Morgan, a Houston company, obtained a state permit last year to build the Permian Highway Pipeline to transport natural gas from the Permian Basin of West Texas to the Katy Hub near Houston. Hays County, the City of Kyle, a trust and two landowners sued Kinder Morgan in April to block the project, challenging the company’s powers to take land for the 42inch pipeline under Texas eminent domain laws.
A state district judge in Austin tossed the lawsuit in June, but Hays County and the others are expected to file an appeal . Kinder Morgan maintains that the route was carefully chosen to impact the fewest number of landowners and that the company will protect environmentally sensitive areas.
"We feel confident that the Travis County District Court ruled in accordance with settled law, and we continue to work with all stakeholders, including state and federal regulators, as we complete the Permian Highway Pipeline," the company said in a statement. "We are also complying with all applicable laws related to endangered species along the pipeline route."
Under Texas state law, pipelines require a 50-foot easement that must be kept clear. Kinder Morgan designed the proposed pipeline route to include a 600foot-wide corridor that allows for some flexibility and adjustments.
The company contends the pipeline will generate nearly $1 billion annually to state and county governments and will unlock production bottlenecks in the Permian Basin — allowing leaseholders to earn more than $2 billion in annual royalties.
With several active pipelines already scattered across the Texas Hill County, the industry-funded group Texans For Natural Gas believes that opponents of the Permian Highway Pipeline have other motives.
“This lawsuit is just about stopping energy development, not about protecting the birds,” the Austin-based group said in statement. “All major projects like this are carefully planned to protect wildlife and the environment, and are overseen by multiple regulatory agencies to ensure that.”