Pipeline foes suffer setback in legal fight
Opponents of a controversial natural gas pipeline through the picturesque Texas Hill Country lost a legal battle but vow to continue their fight against Houston pipeline operator Kinder Morgan.
A U.S. district court judge in Austin on Friday rejected a request for a temporary restraining order that would have halted the $2 billion natural gas Permian Highway Pipeline. The pipeline is being built through the habitat of the golden-cheeked warbler, an endangered songbird, and over parts of the Edwards Aquifer, a source of drinking water to millions and home to several threatened and endangered species of salamander, fish and insects.
Judge Robert Pitman said opponents failed to show a level of harm that would require a restraining order, but he ordered Kinder Morgan not to clear vegetation within the warbler’s range during nesting season, March 1through July 31.
Construction has begun on the western end of the pipeline’s 430mile route from the Permian Basin to the Katy Hub, but Kinder Morgan isn’t out of the woods in the Texas Hill Country. The request for a temporary restraining order was only part of an endan
gered species lawsuit filed Feb. 5 by the cities of Austin and San Marcos, Hays and Travis counties, the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District and four landowners. The company, its subcontractors and the project also face a federal lawsuit filed by five Hill Country landowners.
The endangered species lawsuit is on a path to head to trial, said Jessica Karlsruher, executive director of the Texas Real Estate Advocacy and Defense Coalition, a nonprofit that represents landowners who oppose the project.
The coalition seeks to reform Texas eminent domain laws used by Kinder Morgan and other companies to acquire land for pipelines. The group favors the model used by power line companies in which the proposed route is discussed at public hearings and finalized by a state agency.
“The final routing decision should be made by public officials accountable to all the citizens of Texas,” Karlsruher said. “Kinder
Morgan executives should not have the unilateral power to decide where to build an industrial highway that affects thousands of landowners and dozens of communities.”
Kinder Morgan defends the eminent domain process and the pipeline route, saying it was designed to affect the fewest number of landowners.
The pipeline would move 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Permian Basin to the Houston area. It is expected to generate billions of dollars in annual royalties and taxes for state and county governments, school districts and landowners. It also would unlock production bottlenecks in the Permian Basin, reducing flaring, in which excess gas is burned off at wells.
The pipeline route is expected to affect less than 1 percent of the goldencheeked warbler’s habitat, according to a report from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. But as part of a compromise to offset that habitat destruction, Kinder Morgan has agreed to buy the 1,363-acre Igau Ranch northwest of Austin and donate it to the Texas Conservation Fund as warbler habitat.
“We’re taking less quality habitat that we’re impacting, and we’re replacing it with very high-quality habitat,” Kinder Morgan CEO Steve Kean said. “From a species standpoint, I believe that it comes out ahead as a result.”
Taking advantage of the two-week window before the bird’s nesting season, Kean said the company has started clearing land along the pipeline route in the Hill Country.
The company plans to stop activity when the birds return from their winter habitat in Mexico and Central America and resume work after nesting season has ended.