Natural Gas NOW readers pass along a lot of stuff every week about natural gas, fractivist antics, emissions, renewables, and other news relating to energy. As usual, emphasis is added.

I love the way Andrew Maykuth, writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer tells a story. His reporting is always quite balanced and very personal. He penned a lengthy article the other day about the speculated impact of the Mariner East 2 pipeline on home values along its route. I say speculated because a careful read of the story indicates all there is; speculation home values will go down tomorrow as a consequence of construction today. Here are the excerpts that caught my attention:

The project has unsettled the residential real estate market, as some fearful homeowners sold out ahead of construction, and some buyers moved in unaware of the forthcoming disruption. Many who remained are basically stuck until the dust settles, uncertain of the value of their homes.

“I’m scared of it,” said Kate White, 57, whose house on Lenni Road in Middletown is less than 10 feet from the pipelines. “I would love to move, but who would buy my house now?”

Many homeowners said they were aware their property contained an easement for an 87-year-old Sunoco fuel pipeline, but did not know that it was refurbished in 2014 as the Mariner East 1 to transport gas liquids from the booming Marcellus Shale region.

This is classic Maykuth, subtlely inserting a key point in such a way that you end up reading it a second time to be sure it was correct. In this instance, we learn construction occurring today that is causing so much alarm over the future also happened before and did nothing to impact home values. Construction impacts are so temporary as to be quickly forgotten, which is exactly what happens with pipelines. Once they’re in the ground, no one thinks about them. In fact, one of the pictures in his story shows construction behind War Trophy Lane as an example of the disruption from pipeline construction but this is what it looked like before and will look like again afterward:

Read more:

http://naturalgasnow.org/natural-gas-now-picks-week-june-10-2018/