Fracking hits close to home

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, or at least a part of it is scheduled to pass within about a mile and a half up the creek from me

this is a couple years away, went to a propaganda meeting last night at the local ag extension building and they made sure to keep everyone in small groups the pipeline employees practically outnumbered the locals

and there was no single organized presentation, but from what i heard several of the experts were on the ropes looking for answers to very intelligent questions they couldn't really answer--probably why they didn't want a whole lot of us listening to the really intelligent questions and the not so intelligent answers.

I talked with an expert who said they did not use any herbicide to keep the line maintained, all mechanical mowing

is that really true?

anybody have a line on how to redirect all that money into better uses?

In a perfect world, a permie finds out how much they spend on mechanical mowing, and offers to graze sheep (in grassy areas) and goats (in browsy areas), and only charge the company 80% of what they're paying to mow it.

A pipeline or fracking or both? Very different issues.

Most pipelines here in the midwest go right under farmland and you don't even know they are there except for the valve and pump stations. Very few problems with the pipelines here, much less impact than driving it around in trucks. Problems do happen, though--especially in the ones built quickly around fracking fields.

Fracking, that is an ulcer factory subject.

I'm thinking from what i've heard that the fracking in W VA and the pipeline are already a done deal, but i may try and get an editorial into the local newspaper, bringing up the atrocity that is fracking, and then talking about our culture which creates it, and of course leading into a better way, raising consciousness along the way

I actually had an interesting talk with an old timer working on the pipeline from georgia, and he sees the quality of life going downhill, he wants to change it all, but doesn't quite see how it might happen.

really, when you think about it, people like him are just sorry souls who feel caught between the only way they know to make a living and what they believe to be moral and just

finding that tipping point for people like that, reaching them in their hearts and minds is really where we have to be going if we're going to do what we think needs to be done to save the planet, and then of course providing them with the skills that will make them abundant.

and as far as grazing animals to keep the pipeline maintained, that's an interesting thought, maybe get some nomadic grazers that just move electric fences and cattle right along the corridor, although there will be large sections presumably that will be off limits to a wandering shepherd since the way they work it is individual land holders can mostly keep control of their section of the corridor, farming or grazing it according to their personal use--evidently they get paid for the acreage as if the pipeline owned it, but it actually reverts back to them after the pipe is buried.

I have a pipeline that was put in about a year ago approximately 1.5 miles from my house. A bunch of property owners in our small town and a few surrounding towns tried to get it stopped but to no avail. Sounds like the gas company did the same sort of thing here as they did by you. They had to buy the land rights from all the property owners in our town, most of which were farmers/ranchers (most of the land was cattle pasture). I talked to one of the cattle farmers/land owners and all he said how he was excited to make X amount of extra money that year.
I don't think most land owners really give it much thought until one of the lines blows and blows up a residents. I know if my house was right on the pipeline I would do everything I could to stop it. Reality is one small property owner has a hard time changing the course of a pipeline. Best case scenario is that you fight hard enough and they reroute the course of their original pipeline plans. From what I heard from everyone is that even if everyone in your entire town is against it and obstructs the pipeline from coming thru, they will just reroute the pipeline into an adjacent town. I guess the good news on this is that if every town did this it might make the planning so expensive that the entire pipeline might be redirected away from your location.
As far as grazing animals I haven't seen that. In fact the area where they pipeline is hasn't really grown that well since the pipeline has been put in, I assume a local contractor has the contract for mowing the area.

I put the question in for one to ask willie smits what ideas he might have, seems like he hinted at it in the video they made available that weekend, so keep a lookout for when that podcast comes out if he talks about it