By Everette Pitts
Pittsboro, NC – More than 350 people packed a special Chatham County Board of Commissioners meeting Aug. 5 to deliver an overwhelmingly unified message about Enbridge Gas North Carolina’s proposed 28-mile natural gas pipeline: They do not want it crossing the county’s farms, forests, rivers and family land, and they want county leaders to use every legal tool available to slow, scrutinize or stop the project.
For nearly two hours, landowners, farmers, scientists, environmental advocates, veterans, attorneys and longtime residents described fears about eminent domain, drinking-water contamination, explosions, property values, agriculture, climate change and the possibility that new gas infrastructure could encourage large-scale industrial development.
Many speakers urged commissioners to require a special- or conditional-use permit, adopt a formal resolution opposing the project, seek a more comprehensive environmental review and intervene wherever possible in state and federal permitting proceedings.
But the meeting also underscored a fundamental complication confronting Chatham County: Much of the authority over the pipeline lies outside county government.
“This is a formal public comment session item period for Chatham County to share their thoughts, concerns, and perspectives regarding the proposed Enbridge pipeline project directly with the Board of Commissioners,” the board’s chairwoman Amanda Robertson said at the beginning of the Aug. 5 meeting.
“As a local government in North Carolina,” Robertson continued, “it is important to understand that the county has limited authority over the approval process and ultimate outcome of a project of this nature.”
That distinction may determine the next phase of a dispute that has rapidly become one of Chatham County’s most contentious land-use and infrastructure battles.
The gathering at the Chatham County Agriculture & Conference Center was a special public hearing intended to receive public comment on Enbridge’s proposed natural-gas system expansion. More than 350 people attended, and 50 people addressed commissioners directly.
No pipeline approval vote was taken during the public-comment portion of the meeting.
A 28-mile pipeline through a rapidly changing county
Enbridge Gas North Carolina proposes a roughly 28-mile, 12-inch-diameter natural-gas pipeline through Chatham County, extending from the Siler City area toward Moncure and the Lee County line.
The company says the expansion is intended to increase capacity and reliability as Chatham County adds residential, commercial and industrial customers.
Enbridge’s project information says the pipeline would serve “growing residential, commercial and industrial needs” and support both existing customers and future growth. The company says the project is not being constructed for one specific customer or industry.
In an interview with WUNC, an Enbridge representative said the utility had experienced customer growth of roughly 3% and needed additional infrastructure to maintain reliability and accommodate future demand. The company has said construction could begin as early as fall 2027 if the project receives necessary permits and other approvals.
They claim a final route has not been established.
Enbridge says the corridor shown to landowners represents a study area and may be adjusted as engineering, environmental surveys, landowner discussions and permitting continue. The company says the pipeline is currently proposed to cross the Haw River and tributaries of the Rocky River, although final construction methods for those crossings have not been determined.
Those qualifications have done little to reassure residents whose properties fall within or near the study corridor.
For many speakers on August 5, the controversy was less about abstract energy policy than about acreage their families had spent generations protecting.
“Our family has lived on land in Chatham for generations”
Amanda Clark told commissioners she was a Chatham County native, graduated from Northwood High School and can trace her Chatham County ancestry to the 1750s.
Her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins have homes or land along the proposed route, she said.
“Our family has lived on land in Chatham for generations and we want to continue that,” Clark said.
Clark, who said she holds a Master of Public Health degree and has worked in public-health roles for nearly a decade, focused on what could happen if a pipeline accident affected private wells, farmland or livestock.
“What will our family or others do if our well water is unsafe to use?” she asked. “What will we do if we can no longer safely grow food or raise animals on our land due to contaminated soil?”
Those concerns were repeated throughout the meeting.
Some residents described Revolutionary War-era land grants. Others talked about farms intended to be passed to children and grandchildren. Several said their families had already lost property when land was condemned decades ago for Jordan Lake.
For those speakers, the possibility of another exercise of eminent domain carried historical as well as financial weight.
Jennifer Gardner told commissioners that land she shares with her sister on Ross Road was connected to a 1793 Revolutionary War land grant.
“Nothing means more to me than these two plots of land,” she said. “It’s all I’ve got.”
Another speaker, Sarah Gionni, distilled much of the evening’s sentiment into a simpler statement.
“We just don’t want it,” she said.
Her family, she said, had worked too hard to obtain its 10 acres to accept a permanent pipeline easement without a fight.
Eminent domain becomes the defining issue
No subject generated more emotion than eminent domain.
Enbridge has already faced disputes with landowners who refused access for surveying. The company sued John and Sheila Alderman after the couple denied survey crews access to their property. Enbridge argued that North Carolina law permitted the preliminary survey work; the Aldermans challenged the company’s attempt to enter their land.
John Alderman appeared before commissioners August 5 and said his family ultimately settled its dispute out of court.
The broader legal framework is more complicated than some statements made during the public meeting suggested.
North Carolina General Statute 40A-11 permits a qualifying condemnor, before filing a condemnation complaint, to enter land — though not buildings or structures — to conduct surveys, borings, examinations and appraisals after providing the required written notice. The statute generally calls for at least 30 days’ notice and requires reimbursement for damage caused by the entry.
North Carolina law also grants eminent-domain authority to certain pipeline companies. State statutes identify qualifying natural-gas pipeline companies as entities that may exercise condemnation powers for legally authorized public uses or benefits.
That statutory authority does not necessarily resolve every potential dispute over a particular parcel, route, compensation amount or claimed public purpose. Those questions can become subjects of negotiation or litigation.
Enbridge says condemnation is a last resort and that its preference is to negotiate voluntary easements with property owners. If negotiations fail, the company says North Carolina law provides a legal process through which compensation is determined.
Residents at the August 5 meeting repeatedly questioned whether a pipeline they believe will disproportionately benefit industrial users meets the spirit or legal requirements of public use.
Pete Deichler, who said he supports responsible economic growth, framed the issue as one of property rights rather than opposition to all development.
“For most people, their land is far more than an asset on a balance sheet,” Deichler said. “It is where they built their home. It is where they raised their children. It may be a family farm that has been passed down through generations.”
“A check can replace acreage,” he added, “but it cannot replace a family’s roots.”
What a permanent pipeline easement would mean
The physical pipeline would be underground, but its footprint would not disappear after construction.
Enbridge says the permanent right-of-way would typically be about 50 feet wide, with approximately 30 additional feet of temporary workspace generally needed during construction.
The company says agricultural activities generally can continue over a right-of-way after restoration. But landowners would face restrictions intended to protect the pipeline, including limits on structures, certain excavation and deep-rooted trees within the permanent easement.
For farmers, timber owners and agritourism operators who spoke Aug. 5, those restrictions are significant.
Claire Apple told commissioners that her farm and agritourism operation sits adjacent to the proposed corridor. Visitors, she said, come from across North Carolina and other states for the rural experience, spending money not only on her farm but at Chatham County restaurants and stores.
Other speakers described cattle operations, hay fields, orchards, timberland and livestock dependent on private wells.
Stephanie Davis, who said her small farm lies along the proposed route, argued that Chatham County’s farmland and rural landscape are economic assets in their own right.
“This is not the time to give away our most valuable resources,” she said.
Water concerns stretch beyond individual properties
The Haw, Rocky and Deep rivers repeatedly surfaced during the meeting as another reason residents want additional environmental scrutiny.
Chatham County lies within a complicated network of watersheds and drinking-water sources. Residents said damage to streams or groundwater could extend consequences far beyond the immediate construction corridor.
Emily Sutton, the Haw Riverkeeper with the Haw River Assembly, specifically called attention to the proposed Haw River crossing and urged the county to participate aggressively when state water-quality reviews begin.
Enbridge acknowledges that its current study route would cross the Haw River and tributaries of the Rocky River. The company says it will work with regulators to determine appropriate crossing methods and conduct environmental surveys involving waterways, wetlands, wildlife and cultural resources.
The company also says it intends to conduct preconstruction sampling of wells near construction areas where appropriate and monitor potential impacts. Enbridge says that if its work is determined to have harmed a water supply, the company would repair or replace the affected supply.
Residents said remediation after an accident would not be an adequate substitute for preventing damage.
“The Enbridge pipeline threatens our water supply and environment,” Elizabeth Hart, a Hickory Mountain Township resident, told commissioners.
She and others urged the county to seek a more comprehensive environmental assessment before construction is allowed.
What environmental review would actually occur?
One of the most repeated demands Aug. 5 was for a full environmental impact statement.
Whether such a document will be legally required, however, depends on the federal permitting process and the scope and significance of federal actions associated with the project.
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, a federal agency prepares an environmental impact statement when a proposed major federal action is determined to significantly affect the human environment. An EIS therefore is not automatically required simply because a pipeline is proposed.
Other environmental reviews are more clearly part of the permitting landscape.
North Carolina’s Division of Water Resources administers Section 401 water-quality certification for activities affecting streams, wetlands and other waters when federal permits are involved. Projects involving significant impacts or sensitive resources can require individual certifications and more detailed review.
Under current North Carolina procedures, an individual Section 401 certification includes a 30-day public-notice period, giving governments, organizations and residents an opportunity to submit project-specific comments.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also administers federal permitting under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act for certain discharges of dredged or fill material into waters and wetlands.
That means the coming months could produce several regulatory opportunities for opponents and supporters to place environmental evidence in official records even though Chatham County does not control all of those decisions.
Pipeline safety history moves to center stage
Residents repeatedly cited Enbridge’s accident history as evidence that even a low-probability pipeline failure warrants serious consideration.
Several of the incidents they described can be verified in federal records, although not every example involved the same type of pipeline proposed for Chatham County.
On August 1, 2019, an Enbridge-affiliated 30-inch natural-gas transmission pipeline ruptured near Danville, Kentucky. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, approximately 101.5 million cubic feet of natural gas was released and ignited. One person died, six were injured, more than 75 were evacuated, five homes were destroyed, 14 were damaged and more than 30 acres burned.
The NTSB concluded that the rupture resulted from a combination of factors involving a pre-existing manufacturing “hard spot,” degraded pipeline coating and ineffective cathodic protection that contributed to hydrogen-induced cracking.
Speakers also repeatedly cited Enbridge’s 2010 Kalamazoo River disaster in Michigan.
That incident involved crude oil, rather than natural gas, an important distinction when assessing the physical risks of the proposed Chatham pipeline. But it remains a significant part of Enbridge’s corporate safety history.
The NTSB found that more than 843,000 gallons of crude oil escaped from Enbridge Line 6B and that the rupture went unrecognized for more than 17 hours. Operators twice restarted pumping during the incident before the rupture was identified.
In a later federal settlement, the Environmental Protection Agency announced tens of millions of dollars in civil penalties associated with the Michigan spill and another Illinois spill, along with requirements for extensive pipeline safety improvements.
Enbridge, for its part, says leaks are uncommon, that its systems are continuously monitored and that its North Carolina operations comply with state and federal pipeline-safety requirements. The company says its predecessor utilities have operated in North Carolina for more than 90 years and in Chatham County since the 1950s.
The disagreement, therefore, is not over whether pipeline accidents can happen. They can.
The dispute is over what level of risk is acceptable, whether modern engineering and regulation sufficiently reduce that risk and whether the benefits of the Chatham project justify the permanent infrastructure and easements needed to build it.
The data-center question
Hovering over virtually every part of the Aug. 5 discussion was another issue: data centers.
Chatham County commissioners imposed a 12-month moratorium earlier this year on permitting new data centers, data-processing facilities and cryptocurrency mining operations in unincorporated areas while the county studies their potential effects. The county approved the temporary moratorium Feb. 11.
A large proposed technology development has also generated litigation surrounding that moratorium. The backdrop has fueled suspicions among residents that Enbridge’s pipeline is being constructed primarily to provide fuel for a major data center or related industrial complex.
Several speakers treated that connection as established.
Enbridge explicitly denies that the Chatham County pipeline is being built for a data center.
The company says the proposed 12-inch line would not have sufficient capacity to provide the amount of energy typically associated with a large data-center complex and says it has no agreement to supply such a facility.
An Enbridge representative similarly told Chapelboro that the energy demands normally associated with data centers would exceed the capacity expected from the project.
WUNC has reported on residents’ suspicions involving the proposed technology development while also noting Enbridge’s denial that the pipeline is designed to serve it.
The distinction matters.
Questions about future industrial demand, additional pipelines and potential customers are legitimate subjects for public scrutiny. But based on the presently available record, the claim that the proposed Chatham line is specifically being constructed to power a particular data center remains disputed and has not been publicly demonstrated.
What authority does Chatham County actually have?
This may be the most consequential unresolved question.
Residents repeatedly asserted that commissioners could require a conditional- or special-use permit. Some speakers urged the board to amend county ordinances immediately if existing rules do not clearly require one.
The county itself has been more cautious.
At the opening of the meeting, commissioners explicitly acknowledged that Chatham County has “limited authority over the approval process and ultimate outcome” of the project.
Enbridge says the reason is partly structural: This is an intrastate natural-gas project, not an interstate pipeline requiring route approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
According to the company, the project does not require a FERC certificate of public convenience and necessity and does not require the North Carolina Utilities Commission to approve the pipeline route through a certificate of public convenience and necessity.
That does not mean the project is unregulated.
The North Carolina Utilities Commission oversees pipeline safety. Enbridge also says that after the project enters service, the company must demonstrate to state regulators that its spending and decisions were prudent and in customers’ interests if it seeks to recover project costs through regulated rates.
State environmental agencies and the Army Corps may separately review impacts involving water, wetlands and construction.
Local land-use authority presents a more complicated legal question.
The county has zoning and development regulations, and residents want commissioners to test the maximum extent of that authority. Whether a particular county ordinance can lawfully be applied to every component of this intrastate utility project — and what conditions could survive a legal challenge — may ultimately require detailed legal analysis or litigation.
That uncertainty is why several speakers urged commissioners not simply to accept assertions that they are powerless.
An eminent-domain attorney who spoke during the meeting told commissioners that local resolutions and advocacy could still carry weight even when final regulatory authority rests elsewhere.
“Rejecting this proposal is not about rejecting development outright,” the attorney said. “It’s about requiring responsible planning.”
Residents ask commissioners to build a record
Several of the Aug. 5 requests were aimed less at giving Chatham County a unilateral veto than at creating an official government record.
Speakers asked commissioners to:
- adopt a formal resolution opposing the pipeline;
- determine whether local zoning can require a special- or conditional-use permit;
- request the most comprehensive environmental review legally available;
- participate in state water-quality proceedings;
- scrutinize stream and river crossings individually;
- protect county-owned land from voluntary easements where possible;
- document drinking-water, farmland and public-safety concerns for state and federal regulators; and
- examine the public-necessity arguments behind any future use of eminent domain.
A resolution by itself would not necessarily stop construction.
But supporters of such a measure argued that an official statement from the county could become part of the administrative and political record reviewed by agencies or courts.
The same is true of environmental comments.
When a state or federal public-comment period opens, technical evidence about streams, threatened species, drinking-water sources, erosion, farmland or alternative routes can potentially become part of the record used by regulators in making permit decisions.
That is why Sutton urged commissioners to prepare before applications are formally opened for comment rather than waiting for deadlines to begin.
Scientists point to vulnerable habitat
Environmental concerns extended beyond generalized fears of pollution.
Dr. Aaron Bell, who identified himself as a biologist, zoologist and instructor at North Carolina State University, told commissioners that portions of the Rocky River watershed near the proposed corridor contain habitat of unusually high ecological significance.
Bell specifically discussed the Cape Fear shiner, a rare fish, and Harperella, an aquatic plant.
He told commissioners that he had collected and photographed fish from a tributary near the proposed corridor and sent the images to experts for identification. Bell warned that the tributary flows toward habitat supporting an important population of Cape Fear shiner.
His observations were presented as part of his testimony and would require agency review to determine their implications for the project and permitting.
His broader point, however, reflected one of the meeting’s recurring themes: Residents want ecological questions answered before a route is fixed rather than after construction begins.
Climate and growth collide
The debate also revealed a deeper disagreement about what kind of infrastructure should accompany Chatham County’s extraordinary growth.
Some speakers acknowledged that more homes, businesses and industrial facilities are coming.
Their argument was not that the county could remain unchanged.
It was that approving long-lived fossil-fuel infrastructure could shape the pattern of that growth for decades.
Jennifer Cure, a retired nursery professional, questioned the urgency of committing billions of dollars to fossil-fuel systems at a time when renewable-energy technologies continue to advance.
“Why not slow down?” she asked.
Other residents connected the pipeline to the county’s work on climate planning and argued that expanding natural-gas infrastructure would be inconsistent with efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
Enbridge frames the issue differently: The company says the pipeline is necessary to maintain reliable service for a growing customer base and to provide capacity for Chatham County’s broader economic development.
Those arguments are likely to persist even if the route changes.
What happens next
The August 5 meeting did not resolve the Enbridge pipeline fight.
It did something else: It established in unusually emphatic terms where a large and organized group of Chatham County residents stands.
The company remains in the design, survey and route-refinement phase. Environmental studies and property negotiations continue. State and federal permits will still be needed for portions of the work, and Enbridge has said construction could begin as early as fall 2027 if those processes are completed.
Meanwhile, disputes involving survey access and property rights have already demonstrated that the project can move into court before construction begins.
For commissioners, the immediate challenge is defining where influence ends and enforceable authority begins.
For residents, the next major opportunities may come through county ordinance discussions, environmental permit notices, property negotiations and any future court proceedings involving access or condemnation.
And for Enbridge, the task will be convincing a deeply skeptical community that the project’s public benefits outweigh the disruption, environmental risks and permanent land rights it is asking Chatham residents to accept.
At the end of the Aug. 5 public-comment session, commissioners thanked the crowd for showing up.
“You matter to us,” the board’s chair Amanda Robertson told residents.
For the people who filled the Agriculture & Conference Center, the question now is what those words will mean in practice.
The proposed pipeline remains a long way from construction. Its precise route remains unsettled. Permits remain ahead. Some of the legal arguments advanced during the meeting remain contested.
But one fact emerged from the hearing with little ambiguity: Organized opposition in Chatham County is no longer a collection of isolated landowners worried about survey stakes on individual properties.
It has become a countywide political, environmental and property-rights movement focused on one demand — that every available layer of scrutiny be applied before a 28-mile pipeline becomes a permanent part of Chatham County’s landscape.