Septuagenarian landowner accuses energy giant of rerouting gas pipeline around power company executive's private home; federal regulators asked to review the realignment

Donnie Peek, a 79-year-old landowner in western Georgia, has formally filed a sworn affidavit and petition with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), alleging that during the rerouting of a $3.5 billion natural gas pipeline project, the pipeline was redirected to exclude the private residence of a power company executive while placing 2.5 miles of continuous pipeline entirely on land owned by him alone.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Peek purchased the original 150 acres of land in Muscogee County along the Chattahoochee River in 1967, and over the following decades expanded his property to 1,600 acres. The pipeline, named Southern System Expansion 4, is operated by Southern Natural Gas (SNG), a joint venture between energy giant Kinder Morgan and Southern Co.; the entire pipeline network stretches 7,600 miles from Texas to the southeastern United States.

The pipeline was originally designed to be laid along an existing utility easement, crossing the properties of four residential landowners. However, a revised plan released earlier this year changed the route, reducing the affected landowners from four to Peek alone and adding approximately 1,400 feet of pipeline. According to disclosures by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, after the rerouting the pipeline shifted sharply east just past the edge of Lane's property, then turned sharply north, completely avoiding Chris Lane's residence — Lane is a 25-year power plant manager at a subsidiary of Southern Co.

In the sworn affidavit submitted to FERC on August 28, Peek described in detail his conversation with a representative of Pinnacle Resources Group (an intermediary agency acting for SNG), and said the representative told him that Lane's property could not be acquired through eminent domain because of his position. In a statement provided to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, SNG denied giving Lane special treatment, saying there was "no policy exempting Southern Co. employees from participating in this process," and that the rerouted plan "represents the best balance between impacts on landowners and the operational needs of the project." Lane himself declined to comment publicly.

During negotiations, SNG offered $300,000 to Peek to acquire additional easement rights, on the condition that he would persuade the other landowners to accept the original route. After Peek was unable to reach agreement with his neighbors, the company proposed to simply pay that sum in cash in exchange for the 2.5-mile rerouted section, which Peek refused. "I told them this isn't about money, but about an executive pushing to shift the pipeline onto my land to route it around his home," Peek told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He described the interactions between the company and Lane as "smelling wrong," and said "anyone with a little common sense would understand... why they would route the pipeline around it, especially around this rather senior Southern Co. executive."

Emails obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution show that Lane had previously submitted two alternative route proposals directly to Kinder Morgan, one of which advocated using an existing power transmission line easement near a power plant in Alabama to bypass the entire community. Peek stated in his affidavit that he was completely excluded from the internal discussions of these alternatives, and he insists that reverting to the original straight route "would effectively avoid felling thousands of trees, shorten the length of the pipeline, and distribute the easement burden more fairly among surrounding landowners."

Kinder Morgan executive Allen Fore told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the pipeline route is influenced by a variety of engineering and environmental factors, and that the company looks forward to speaking directly with Peek after legal review is completed. FERC has granted primary approval for the pipeline expansion project, and Peek's petition is currently under review by commission officials in Washington.