A group of protesters opposed to a natural gas pipeline being built in Vermont took their dispute to the home of Vermont’s top utility regulator this week.
At about 6:15 Wednesday morning the Vermont Commissioner of Public Service discovered a group of people at his home setting up traffic cones, painting orange lines in the driveway, driving stakes into the ground, carrying a chainsaw and building a 20-foot tall mock derrick. The group demanded he sign a document. He refused and called the police.
The People’s Department of Environmental Justice contend the Public Service Department and Public Service Board rubber stamped all applications for a 43-mile natural gas pipeline between Colchester and Middlebury. Group member Douglas Smith says they wanted to show the Commissioner what homeowners have experienced and how they have been harassed with eminent domain. “We were surveying out as if his land had been confiscated for Vermont Gas. Of course it was a dramatic, quite colorful event. But we wanted to bring to the attention of the public and actually even to the attention of the commissioner that these rulings that they make in their hermetic offices in Montpelier have real effect on real people along the route of the gas pipeline.”
Commissioner Chris Recchia was not pleased to find the dozen people trespassing and called police. “I'm willing to meet with anyone on a professional basis and I certainly have supported these and similar group’s ability to protest in public settings on public events. But coming to my house not OK and I don't think it's a very good tactic and I think most people would agree. You know it was upsetting and nerve wracking for a while until I figured out what was going on. But I don't think it's particularly effective.”
Smith says the group’s action is a harmless parody. “It really dramatizes, it brings home, a little bit of the reality of what’s happening to the real people. Because Commissioner Recchia said himself well this wasn’t very pleasant. But just imagine how unpleasant this is for those who are facing these eminent domain proceedings and hearing the chain saws cutting down the trees, and clearing paths through wetlands and habitats.”
“That’s just ludicrous.” Reccia says that argument lacks any merit. “In an eminent domain process first of all people are getting paid for the impacts on their property. And they are being compensated for that. And we've actually gone out of our way to actually give them compensation in advance so they could litigate and have good standing in the process of eminent domain before the Public Service Board. Somebody comes onto your private property and starts firing up chainsaws and putting in stakes and ribbons and you don't really know what they're planning on doing, that is not harmless. It's not even comparable and the feeling that one gets is not comparable. So it is an absolute ludicrous comparison.”
Recchia adds that the protest cannot impact the permitting process. “The pipeline is fully permitted. That's the other thing that's odd about this. We’re at the tail end of this process. It’s been going on for three years. We've had lots of public meetings, lots of hearings. The department has adjusted its position based on increased price of the pipeline but we still maintain that it is in the public benefit. And the Public Service Board is agreed three times so that process is done.”
The protesters left Recchia’s property before police arrived and no arrests were made.
In October, Vermont Gas said it had reached right-of-way agreements with 94 percent of landowners in the Addison Natural Gas Projectcorridor. The company filed nine eminent domain petitions but said it would continue to negotiate alternatives.
The pipeline to Middlebury is expected to be completed late this year.
