The fight against

#3 2019

The local fight against the routing of the Kinder Morgan pipeline cannot be summed up with one story from this year. In fact, at least 16 stories related to the pipeline graced the front page of the newspaper this year.

A search for the word “pipeline” on wimberleyview.com returned 123 results (though some of that likely includes references to the city of Wimberley’s sewer system pipe that might be bored under Cypress Creek). From stories to letters to the editor and even ads, the natural gas pipeline has dominated the year.

Even though the story of the pipeline’s routing through the Wimberley Valley officially broke in the fall of 2018, it is the fight both the Wimberley Valley, Hays County and plenty of surrounding entities have put up that is one of the top stories of the year.

The multi-billion-dollar, 42-inch pipeline is planned to carry 2.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day the across Hays County including the Wimberley Valley. A number of governmental entities and groups have been fighting throughout the year to try and get Kinder Morgan, the company who will own the pipeline, to select a different route.

In February, Kinder Morgan held a public meeting to discuss the pipeline at the Wimberley Community Center. The Wimberley View called the meeting ‘raucous’ as protesting individuals chanted in discontent throughout portions of the event.

The distain showed was the just tip of the iceberg. Governmental entities were soon to follow. In February and March, the cities of Wimberley and Woodcreek joined Hays County and other Hays County cities in passing a resolution against the route of the pipeline.

In late March, the Hays County Commissioners Court authorized a “joint defense agreement” with the Texas Real Estate Advocacy and Defense Coalition that eventually turned into a lawsuit against Kinder Morgan and the Texas Railroad Commission over the process of pipeline approval. That lawsuit was later dismissed by a State District Court.

The city of Kyle later passed an ordinance restricting where the pipeline could go only to later come to an agreement with Kinder Morgan on a settlement before the a lawsuit over the issue made it to court. Kinder Morgan paid a fee to allow the pipeline to cross town.

In July, Hays County joined the Travis Audubon Society and three other plaintiffs in suing Kinder Morgan, the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service over the regulations regarding the potential taking of endanger species habitat.

In October, the city of San Marcos joined the cities of Kyle and Austin, the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District, the Wimberley Valley Watershed Association and the Texas Real Estate Advocacy and Defense Coalition as part of the lawsuit.

Kinder Morgan told investors in October that the pipeline completion date had been pushed back from the fourth quarter of 2020 to the early part of 2021 due to “regulatory issues.”

In November, the company announced that construction was underway on the first 100 miles of pipeline in West Texas. Still, the lawsuits, and the fight against the routing of the pipeline, continue.