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Columbia Gas appeals unfavorable decision on Md. pipeline easements

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Columbia Gas appeals unfavorable decision on Md. pipeline easements

Columbia Gas Transmission LLC appealed a district court ruling that denied the company's attempt to force Maryland to grant easements for its approximately $25 million Eastern Panhandle natural gas pipeline project.

On Sept. 20, the TC Energy Corp. subsidiary notified the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland that it had filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. (U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland docket 1:19-cv-01444)

"This project is important to help ensure that everyone in the region has access to a reliable and affordable source of energy," TC Energy spokesman Tim Wright said in a Sept. 24 statement. "For that reason, we continue to look to move it forward."

An environmental group that has opposed the pipeline project, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, criticized the company's appeal. "Columbia Gas is trying to run over Maryland's right to protect its public parks, which are intended for public use," the group's general counsel Anne Havemann said in a Sept. 24 statement. "We are confident in the strength of the legal argument that protects our land from harmful fracked-gas pipelines like the Eastern Panhandle pipeline [Potomac Pipeline]."

On May 16, Columbia Gas filed suit in the district court against the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to condemn the easements after the state agency refused to reach an agreement over the land. The court dismissed the lawsuit in an Aug. 21 decision. The court found that the developer did not have the right to file the suit because the state has immunity under the 11th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which limits federal courts' authority in cases against states.

Columbia Gas had told the district court that it needs the easements to cross the Potomac River with a 4,294-foot horizontal directional drill. Without the easements, both the company and its customers may face "irreparable harm," the company had said.

In July 2018, Columbia Gas received a certificate of public convenience and necessity from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The project would deliver 47,500 Dth/d of gas through less than 4 miles of 8-inch-diameter line running from the Columbia Gas system in Fulton County, Pa., to a delivery point for the utility Mountaineer Gas Co. in Morgan County, W.Va.

Landowners and environmental groups have objected to the route across the Potomac River, the climate impacts of natural gas, and other aspects of the project.