Companies seek eminent domain status to lay gas pipelines

By David Falchek
When Laurie and Brian Kaszuba of Dickson City received a $16,000 offer from a pipeline company to run a natural gas pipeline through their Great Bend property, they didn't see it as a windfall.
Having a natural gas line three feet below the surface with a right-of-way on the surface, would have made it more difficult to build their retirement home or subdivide the land. So they turned it down.
If pipeline companies eyeing the Marcellus Shale region have their way, property owners won't likely have that option.
Laser Marcellus Gathering LLC, of Houston, has applied to the Public Utility Commission to be declared a utility in Pennsylvania, a designation that would give the company the power to condemn any property it needs and to use eminent domain to obtain easements for pipelines.
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