LANCASTER, Pa. - Jim and Sue Bullitt are among those who have long resisted plans to build a natural gas pipeline through their Little Britain Township neighborhood of Kirks Mill.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) conditionally approved the 88-mile AES Mid-Atlantic Express pipeline from Sparrows Point, Md., through a short stretch of Lancaster County, to a distribution center in Eagle, Chester County, in January. Then in March, FERC said it was taking another look due to widespread concerns about the project's safety and environmental impact.
Greg Culler, Little Britain supervisors chairman, said there's a "huge concern" in the township, especially about where the pipeline would actually go.
The company "hasn't really been that forthcoming," Culler said. "We're just basically being treated like a bunch of rednecks out in the country."
A map of possible route alternatives has been posted in the Little Britain Township office, 323 Green Lane, Quarryville. Jim Bullitt, a township planner, and his wife are encouraging people to become pipeline literate.
Don't fight the project, Mrs. Bullitt advises in the township's spring newsletter, because the company could turn around and seize the land by eminent domain. Instead, she wrote, negotiate, and know that pipeline builders must be sensitive to wetlands and other environmental hotspots, and to historic structures (buildings more than 50 years old).
AES has not started construction on the Mid-Atlantic Express,
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