In Conestoga Township, residents forced into un-neighborly action to get pipeline moved

Residents in one slice of rural Conestoga Township are finding that protecting your dream properties sometimes comes down to sticking your neighbor with a gas pipeline.

There, concerted lobbying by five families has succeeded in getting Williams Partners and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to consider a 2-mile re-routing of the controversial proposed Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline away from their properties.

The pipeline had previously been moved onto their properties after the Lancaster County Conservancy and the public protested the pipeline's impact on the Shenk's Ferry and Tucquan Glen nature preserves.

But Alternative 22 would now slice through four new property owners, also who love their land and most of whom worry about negative effects.

The property owners who have lived with the prospect of a massive buried pipeline through their properties for more than a year argue that the new route places more of the pipeline through farm fields, saves more old-growth trees, avoids steep slopes and places fewer buildings within the blast zone of the pipeline.

But in letters supporting the re-routing to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the property owners offer some interesting other reasons.

For example, they argue that the line should be moved because the property owners who would now bear the pipeline “do not oppose as vehemently as we do the crossing of their land.”

The letter is signed by William and Delores Smith, John Timothy Gross, Dennis and Beverly Schaeffer and C. Brian and Deborah Martin.

The same letter also says two of the property owners have worked for the energy industry and thus “we insist that this route variation be considered in the interest of fair play.”

One of those being referred to is Follin Smith, who, along with her husband, John Gerdy, own 50 acres along Sickman’s Mill Road.

Smith formerly worked for Constellation Energy. She finds the argument that her family is more deserving of an unwanted pipeline because of her past work “sad.”

She notes that she has actively opposed the pipeline from being in Conestoga Township and donated money for the cause.

Plus, she says, when she was employed by Constellation, she worked hard to make the production of energy more environmentally friendly. “I shouldn’t be penalized for that,” she says.

Still, she says she harbors no ill feelings towards her neighbors because she says they are trying to protect what is dear to their hearts.

“I think it’s terrible that the FERC process is so opaque and so hard to understand and so hard for the little guy to defend himself against the taking of his properties that one of the few routes you can resort to is, don’t get me, go get my neighbor.”

Another property owner on the re-routing is devastated at the prospect of the pipeline on her property, but does not blame her neighbors.

“Since the township supervisors failed us, we’re stuck with man against man. I don’t blame them. We’re all out on our own,” says Megan Mohn, who with her husband own an organic farm along Sickman’s Mill Road.

In one letter, the Schaeffers address the obvious impact on their neighbors if the pipeline is moved, as they want. ”Much as we all bemoan having to submit route variation requests which will impact any of our neighbors, we didn’t invent this process.

“We are just salt of the earth landowners who are being forced to navigate it.”

Another letter, signed by four of the five families, says the rerouting would affect “gentleman farmers” as opposed to mostly residential property owners.

The same letter warns that if the pipeline is built on the original route it “will most likely kill” an elderly property owner.

One of the letters says the pipeline is better suited for neighbor Tom Grassel’s farm because Grassel is “OK” with the property on his property.

Sure enough, when contacted, Grassel says philosophically, “It has to go somewhere. If you’re going to get the gas from northern Pennsylvania to wherever it’s going south, it has to go through somebody’s ground.

“People get very emotional over this stuff, but it has to go somewhere.”

However, Smith and Mohn say three families affected by the re-routing have joined together and will “do whatever it takes to dissuade them, including legal means.”

Smith notes the presence of a 50-grave cemetery dating back to at least 1795 and the presence of a Native American village on her property.

“There’s all sorts of reasons to not go plowing this thing through here.”

Watch a video of Smith and Gerdy discussing their concerns.