Kelly-Wiecek challenged that point.
“How is building a pipeline from point A to point B across private property any different in this case than it would be in going through different states?” she asked Minear. “You’re still crossing private property to deliver a product from point A to Point B.”
Minear said that in other cases, companies use eminent domain to force landowners to allow rights of way, which they’re not doing with this project.
Chickahominy asked the State Corporation Commission in September to be unregulated because it wasn’t serving retail customers.
The SCC last month ruled against Chickahominy, saying that it was a public utility and therefore subject to SCC oversight. Chickahominy filed a motion for reconsideration earlier this week, which was granted by the SCC on Wednesday, which means the case continues.
Minear said that 60% of those along a rough draft of the proposed route have agreed to have their properties being surveyed.
When Kelly-Wiecek asked how Minear could be surprised that landowners were opposed to a pipeline built across their land, Minear said that the public opposition thus far has been “a generality,” and that “the folks who have given survey permission are a little hesitant about being vocal…and so it looks like there is more opposition than there is.”
