Thought some may find this interesting - Apparently all it takes is a celebrity to get a pipeline rerouted

From the Austin Statesman

Following a drilling mishap in March that led to a spill of tens of thousands of gallons of slurry into an underground aquifer in Blanco County, muddying nearby wells, and push back from Hill Country homeowners, environmental groups and two famed musicians, the CEO of a natural gas pipeline company says he is re-directing the route of the pipeline around — rather than under — the Blanco River.

In an opinion piece in the Houston Chronicle this week, Steven Kean, CEO of Houston-based pipeline company Kinder Morgan, said that “we have decided that rerouting around the Blanco River is the best option.”

Kean’s piece was published a day after musicians Willie Nelson and Paul Simon, who own homes in the Hill Country, said the pipeline project should be stopped.

“Must we wait until the water is poisoned, the grasslands are gone, the local wildlife extinct and communities ruined before common sense and the love of our land prevails?” the pair of musicians wrote. “When will we stop swapping the environment for a profit?”

Thus far, Houston-based pipeline company Kinder Morgan has staved off challenges in courts and at the Legislature to its 430-mile Permian Highway Pipeline, which will carry natural gas from West Texas to refineries on the Texas coast -- including beneath Hays and Blanco counties.

“We have chosen the route carefully and paid landowners handsomely for the easements,” Kean wrote. “We will restore the land when construction is complete and have secured significant additional lands for endangered species habitat. Shutting down the pipeline, as some have demanded, denies these benefits and sends over 2,000 workers home months ahead of the project’s anticipated completion early next year.”

As for the March spill, he said “we deeply regret that this happened, and we started working to make it right with the affected community immediately after it occurred.”

“Drilling activities at the river have been permanently canceled,” he said, claiming that there’s no known lingering well-water contamination from the drilling fluid.

He said the re-routing of the pipeline will result in two additional miles of pipeline.

Kinder Morgan officials did not respond to an American-Statesman request to elaborate on the new path of the pipeline.

In June, the Trinity Edwards Springs Projection Association, acting on behalf of Blanco County landowners whose sole source of drinking water was contaminated, sued Permian Highway Pipeline LLC and its managing partner, Kinder Morgan in federal court.

The suit alleges the pipeline company violated the national Safe Drinking Water Act as it worked to construct the Permian Highway Pipeline. Kinder Morgan pumped 36,000 gallons of drilling fluid into the aquifer on March 28 as the company attempted to drill under the Blanco River.

The incident, about 5 miles east of the city of Blanco, had apparently led to the muddying of the water for some well owners who reported chocolate-colored water coming out of their taps.

The suit demands that Kinder Morgan cleans up the contamination and agrees to prohibit the use of the drilling fluid anywhere between Blanco, Wimberley and Kyle.

Company officials have said that the drilling fluid that contaminated wells is a naturally occurring clay that did not exceed federal pollution standards

The suit differs from the assessment, saying that five components of the drilling fluid are carcinogens.

On Thursday, the pipeline opponents termed the re-routing news a “victory of sorts.”

“There is no good place for this pipeline in the Texas Hill Country, but we have been pushing to put it someplace less bad than in the Blanco River,” said Jeff Mundy, an attorney for Trinity Edwards Springs Projection Association.

On another note:

Kinder Morgan also received a noise violation today from the city of  Kyle.  They tested a part of the pipeline from 4:30pm to 8:45 am directly behind a subdivision.  The noise from the venting was 107 decibels in the back yard of the homes in the subdivision.