Radnor Lake Group Scrutinizing Gas Line Proposal

Proposed pipeline, via Piedmont

There’s fresh scrutiny for a proposed gas pipeline through a popular park in a well-to-do south Nashville neighborhood. Piedmont Natural Gas announced the project cutting through the Radnor Lake area earlier this year, and now its plan is open for review.

To vet Piedmont’s plan, the non-profit Friends of Radnor Lake has recruited experts on wildlife, water and geology. President Greer Tidwell says they’re volunteering, saving the group for work he estimates would cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Tidwell says the volunteer specialists are double-checking Piedmont’s homework to make sure it has minimal impact on the park.

“This is still an unwanted intrusion into what we consider to be the backyard that everybody wishes they had… Just knowing that pipeline is in there has an impact on that. We didn’t invite this in. We’d prefer it not to be coming, but if it is we’re going to do what we can to make sure it’s safe for the park.”

An official with Piedmont says they’ll use a drill more than a hundred feet below the ground to bore room for a mile of pipeline under the park, rather than carving a trench in the surface. Piedmont hopes to start work on the project early next year, citing new federal requirements the area’s existing pipeline can’t meet.

You can read Piedmont’s filing with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation here.

SEE PREVIOUS STORY: All told the 13-mile gas line would stretch from Forest Hills near Percy Warner Park through Oak Hill and almost to I-24 in Antioch.