North Alabama pipeline moves to early study phase

The latest: Around 1,000 letters have been mailed to landowners along the proposed route, and workers are conducting soil testing within 200-foot rights-of-way to identify the final 50-foot easement within which the buried pipe will run, Todd Gentle, Huntsville Utilities gas operations director and NAPED project manager, told Axios.

• The current corridor is 123 miles, starting in northwestern Lauderdale County, going north of Athens and Huntsville, and dropping down into Scottsboro to end in Hollywood, in the vicinity of Bellefonte Nuclear Plant.

Context: Gentle said the study corridor has created confusion, with some landowners thinking construction will take place in that full 200-foot corridor.

• "This is a very preliminary environmental study to see if this corridor is actually a viable location for a 50-foot easement," Gentle said.
• Public meetings are on the way too, he said.
• The final 50-foot corridor will have to remain free of permanent structures but can still grow crops or shallow-rooted trees.

Zoom in: The initial study will identify geographical obstacles, wetlands and soil conditions along the route, as well as any potential Native American artifacts, Gentle said.

• Once it's complete, NAPED will likely move on to a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review, set to take about two-and-a-half years.
• During that time, work will focus on design and coordination, "but until those environmental reviews are done, … there's no talking with landowners about any potential easements," Gentle told Axios.

Driving the news: To be viable, the pipeline will have to serve an anchor tenant in the form of a new, 1,200-1,400 megawatt natural-gas power plant.

• "We have been talking with some folks to try to get those large anchors nailed down," Gentle said.
• That power plant would be independent of NAPED, which would serve to supply the gas to fuel it, though HU spokesperson Joe Gehrdes told Axios the Tennessee Valley Authority would have some involvement either as the producer of the electricity or via a power purchase agreement with the producer.

State of play: Huntsville is currently served by two natural gas pipelines: the Black Bear Pipeline, which is fully subscribed, and the Southern Natural.

• "We've exceeded our capacities in the past few years," Gentle said. "We can do that a day here, a day there, but we get hit with penalties on that gas, and so we started looking at alternative solutions to getting gas into the area."

• Scottsboro, which doesn't have a connection to the larger natural-gas transmission pipelines, "has been reaching out to Huntsville for the past five years, trying to see if we could run a pipeline over to them to help supply natural gas," Gentle said.

Catch up quick: NAPED was formed last summer by Huntsville, Athens and Scottsboro to explore the possibility of a pipeline and "secure reliable, long-term and economical supplies of natural gas," per a Huntsville announcement following a 3-2 City Council vote to approve it.

• It has received more support since then, securing $150,000 from Athens and $600,000 from the upcoming state budget. At the federal level, U.S. Rep. Dale Strong's $15 million request for the project was whittled down to $3 million and awaits a full House vote.

What's next: "Once we get this initial study done, we'll basically be at a point to where we've got a go/no-go of this project," Gentle said. NEPA reviews "are expensive reviews, so before we start that process, we'd like to have some type of contractual agreement [for an anchor tenant] in place."

• If everything goes to plan, NAPED is looking to start construction on the pipeline in the third quarter of 2030, with an in-service date in the fourth quarter of 2031.