Piedmont Natural Gas picks South Carolina gas route
US energy company Piedmont Natural Gas announced November 9 it had settled on a location for a pipeline serving parts of South Carolina.
The company said its pipeline in the city of Greenville would run along the right-of-way of an area highway.
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“The new infrastructure project is vital to meeting the demand for natural gas resulting from growth in and around Greenville,” the company said.
Piedmont has been working with the community and state leaders to move the project forward. The small line, only about 12 miles long, was met with frustration from area residents and environmental advocates, however.
Frank Holleman with the Southern Environmental Law Center said the pipeline, which would run through rural parts of Greenville, is not necessary.
“(The pipeline is) just bad from every angle,” he was quoted as saying by the region’s Greenville News. “It’s not needed. It’s not wanted.”
Piedmont, however, said it serves almost 91,000 customers in an area that has seen its population growing, describing the pipeline as “critical” to meeting the resultant increase in demand for natural gas.
Frank McCullough, the company’s community relations manager, said Piedmont had worked directly with the landowners and businesses that may be impacted and heard “firsthand” about what the community actually wants.
Land surveys are set to begin in early 2022, but construction is still more than a year away.
Piedmont is a subsidiary of utility company Duke Energy.