Company bails on Saugus pipeline project

SAUGUS – Tennessee Gas Pipeline has abandoned plans to lay a pressurized natural gas line through parts of Saugus, but it failed to notify everyone involved.Attorney Peter Flynn, who represents 75 impacted homeowners in Saugus and Lynnfield was one of the last to hear of the company’s departure.Flynn said neither he nor his clients – nor the judge handling the case in federal court – were notified of the change in the case, namely that the plaintiff had essentially left town.Robert Newberry of El Paso, Tennessee’s parent company, confirmed the project had been scrapped but said he wasn’t aware of any action still being played out in court.Newberry said delays in the two-year-long project made continuing the pipeline an expensive proposition.”There were a lot of permitting delays,” he said from his Texas office. “It wouldn’t be until this summer that we could get started and that made the project un-economical at this point.”In 2005, then Project Manager Trisha Eshelman spelled out the company’s plans to lay 7.6 miles of 24-inch natural gas pipeline through sections of Saugus, Wakefield and Lynnfield.The proposed route would skirt through sections of Breakheart, cross 10 Saugus roads including Magnolia and Altamount avenues, Essex Street, Stevens Place, Tangle Wood Drive, Hammersmith Drive, The Lynn Fells Parkway, Howard, Main and Water streets, impacting 26 homeowners.Flynn said the first delay, which lasted around four months could be attributed to his challenge of the assessments Tennessee officials made in seeking easements with property owners. While he was told he could not stop the pipeline, a judge did agree that the initial assessments were handled incorrectly and should be redone.The next round of delays came when state archeologists got involved, then Flynn said he determined that the assessments were still being handled incorrectly.Interestingly, pipeline officials have already paid out a considerable sum to homeowners for easements in at least one neighborhood in one case to the tune of $30,000.Selectman Michael Kelleher said his family received a check for $5,000, which surprised him since the pipeline only skimmed his property. Other neighbors received substantially higher payments and both Flynn and Kelleher confirmed the pipeline hasn’t sought to regain its financial losses despite killing the project.Flynn, however, is not done seeking what he perceives to be two years of financial losses for his clients. Flynn said there are land parcels the residents have been unable to sell due to the pending gas line project, along with fees for experts and researchers preparing testimony.”Think about the two-year commitment from my office,” he said. “We will be seeking to be made whole. The real question is can a gas line company do what it did and then just walk out of town?”