Maple syrup vs. shale gas in eminent domain showdown
It’s shale gas versus maple syrup in a federal court showdown on Friday — and Pennsylvania family protecting a grove of 250 trees on their farm may end up in jail.
A federal judge who granted Continental Pipeline their eminent domain request to cut down 80 percent of the trees on the North Harford Maple farm so it can run its 120-foot wide, 124-mile long pipeline from the shale gas-rich lands of the Keystone State to Albany, NY, has given the Holleran family — and two others — until Friday to get out of the way and allow the trees to be cut.
Megan Holleran, one of the protesters blocking the workers from cutting the trees, says Continental isn’t playing fair.
“We’re trying to keep them from cutting trees before they have all the permits they need to build in New York state,” Holleran, a spokeswoman for the New Milford, Pa., syrup maker told Reuters.
Holleran and her extended family don’t feel Continental is paying them enough for the land. Getting a fair price — and not blocking th pipeline — is their main objective.
“We want to be fairly compensated,” she said.
The protesters, including co-owners Catherine Holleran, Michael Zeffer, Maryann Zeffer, and Patricia Glover, all siblings, and Dustin Webster, their nephew, face arrest on contempt of court charges on Friday if they do not relent.
The protest started on Feb. 10.
Christopher Stockton, a spokesman for Constitution, acknowledged the company does not have all the permits needed to finish the New York portion of the pipeline but said it expected to receive them.
“All the pipe is in New York waiting,” he told Reuters. “The crews are hired and mobilized and ready to go.”
Continental is spending $875 million on the pipeline so it can get its gas to the New York and New England markets. The maple syrup farms just happens to stand in the way and the family business will be ruined.
Protests against fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, to extract gas from subterranean shale rock formations have grown across the state, where the industry has flourished in recent years, Reuters reported.
In Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna County, where North Harford Maple is located, gas companies have frequently tangled with anti-fracking activists, who say the process can pollute water, create noise and trigger earthquakes.
There is also another factor complicating the showdown.
Constitution, under orders from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has to get the trees cut down by March 31 to protect the endangered Northern Long-Eared Bat and certain migratory bird species.
If Continental misses the March 31 deadline, it will have to wait until autumn, at the earliest, to continue pipeline construction