Federal regulators approve methane gas pipeline in Middle Tennessee

Federal regulators have signed off on a new methane gas pipeline in Middle Tennessee. 

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a new, 32-mile segment of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline, an interstate gas line owned by Kinder Morgan. 

The pipeline will supply methane gas to TVA’s Cumberland Gas Plant, a planned project with about 1.5 gigawatts of capacity. Last year, the plant was approved by TVA CEO Jeff Lyash alone, after a short-staffed, Trump-filled TVA Board voted to give him that power. 

The proposed pipeline will cut through Dickson, Houston and Stewart Counties.  

166 miles of pipeline 

In the past two years, TVA has proposed 166 miles of new gas pipelines for three projects: Cumberland, Kingston and Cheatham County. 

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TVA entered into contracts with pipeline companies Kinder Morgan and Enbridge for the Cumberland and Kingston projects in 2021 before formally proposing the plants with environmental reviews in 2022. The type of contract used is called a “precedent agreement,” and it bound TVA to buying gas from the two companies, which make billions of dollars annually through the sale of gas on their pipelines. 

The Southern Environmental Law Center obtained those contracts from TVA through FOIA requests, but “almost the entirety of the contracts were blacked out,” attorney Amanda Garcia told WPLN last year.

SELC sued TVA under FOIA, and both Kinder Morgan and Enbridge intervened in the litigation. The court decided that TVA could invoke “confidential business protection” to avoid revealing the hidden portions of the contract. 

FERC’s role 

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, is one of the few regulating bodies that companies or utilities need to gain approval from to build new pipelines or transmission lines. 

In 2022, FERC announced that it would consider climate change in its decisions. Kinder Morgan and Enbridge, the company trying to build a 122-mile pipeline for TVA’s Kingston project, filed letters in opposition and Republican lawmakers criticized the move. Within a month, FERC re-catageorized the announcement as a draft. 

Last year, researchers from Harvard University, RMI and NASA showed that methane leaks from pipelines and drilling or fracking sites make gas as bad or worse than coal for the climate.

FERC did not assess greenhouse gas emissions in its decision on the Tennessee Gas Pipeline last week, instead relying on information provided by TVA. Two weeks before FERC made its decision, TVA said it might delay closing its Cumberland coal plant if the agency did not approve the pipeline. 

The project only needs state and federal approvals to move forward. The local governments of communities that will be affected by the pipeline cannot interfere with the project — due to legislation passed by the Tennessee General Assembly in 2022. 

Black, low-income communities will be most affected by the pipeline 

The majority of communities affected by the pipeline are federally defined as environmental justice communities, with mostly Black or low-income residents, according to FERC’s written decision, which summarized impacts as “less than significant.” 

But all gas pipelines have risks. There is ecological damage during installation, climate pollution and fire potential. 

The pipeline will partially run alongside a transmission line, which pipeline engineer Rob Connor told WLPN increases the threat of a dangerous explosion due to corrosion. 

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Rob Connor stands in a Tennessee Valley Authority transmission corridor in Dickson County in September. The right-of-way may be expanded for a new pipeline to enable a TVA gas plant.

“From an engineering and safety standpoint, this is the worst place to install a pipeline,” Connor, who owns land adjacent to the proposed pipeline corridor, said last year. 

Gas pipelines catch fire or explode every year. Between 2003 and 2022, gas pipelines caused 218 fatalities and about 1,000 injuries in the U.S. Last year, a station from the Tennessee Gas Pipeline exploded in Hickman County. 

The new pipeline will also be built across local water features in Middle Tennessee. 

“Pipeline construction would mean over 155 stream crossings, each one carrying a threat of water contamination and harm to aquatic ecosystems,” Bri Knisley, of the environmental group Appalachian Voices, said in a statement.