{"id":2643,"date":"2016-11-30T12:23:09","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T17:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2643"},"modified":"2016-12-01T17:20:58","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T22:20:58","slug":"transcanada-unit-columbia-gas-transmission-moving-forward-with-plans-to-send-gas-pipeline-under-the-co-canal-and-potomac-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2643","title":{"rendered":"TransCanada Unit Columbia Gas Transmission Moving Forward with Plans to Send Gas Pipeline Under the C&O Canal and Potomac River"},"content":{"rendered":"

TransCanada unit Columbia Gas Transmission is moving forward with plans to put a natural gas pipeline under the C&O Canal and the Potomac River about a mile and a half west of Hancock, Maryland.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The company is in negotiations with landowners in the area — including the Town of Hancock — to purchase rights of way to build the pipeline.<\/span><\/p>\n

The company has applied to the National Parks Service for a permit to survey the area.<\/span><\/p>\n

The company\u2019s application<\/a> was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request to the National Parks Service.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to a map attached to the application, the pipeline route is about a mile and a half west of Hancock.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cColumbia is proposing to conduct civil, cultural and environmental surveys,\u201d the company said in its permit application.<\/span><\/p>\n

The survey team will consist of personnel from five companies — Arcadis \u201ca design and consultancy for natural and built assets,\u201d Coastal Resources \u201ca natural resource management company,\u201d R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates \u201ca cultural resource management group,\u201d Percheron LLC \u201can integrated land services provider,\u201d and EnSite USA \u201ca project management and survey company.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The proposed pipeline would run from the Pennsylvania border south to the C&O Canal and then under the canal and the Potomac River ending close to Lover\u2019s Leap in northern Morgan County West Virginia. <\/span><\/p>\n

If approved by state and federal authorities, the pipeline would carry fracked natural gas from Pennsylvania to a pipeline proposed by Mountaineer Gas in West Virginia that would take the gas across U.S. Silica\u2019s sand mine east along route 9 to Martinsburg.<\/span><\/p>\n

A coalition of area farmers, landowners and activists have organized to oppose both the Mountaineer Gas and TransCanada pipeline proposals.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was at a presentation last night in Frostburg on the geology of Western Maryland,\u201d said Potomac Riverkeeper Brent Walls. \u201cThere were three geologists \u00a0there with the Maryland Geological Survey. Afterwards, I informed them of the proposal of Columbia Gas to drill a pipeline under the Potomac near Hancock. Each one of them looked alarmed. Each one of them shook their head in dismay over the choice of that area to drill.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Walls said that the geologists were shocked because of the karst geology in that area.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem with drilling in Karst geology is that pipelines do leak,\u201d Walls said. \u201cThey will eventually leak. Karst geology provides direct avenues to surface waters. Karst geology is a ticking time bomb when it comes to pipelines coming through.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TransCanada unit Columbia Gas Transmission is moving forward with plans to put a natural gas pipeline under the C&O Canal and the Potomac River about a mile and a half west of Hancock, Maryland. The company is in negotiations with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2643"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2648,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643\/revisions\/2648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}