Alpharetta-based Colonial Pipeline has submitted applications to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to install a 44-mile petroleum pipeline across four Georgia counties.

If the EPD approves the applications, filed last week, Colonial will be able to use eminent domain to acquire easements on properties for the pipeline.

Before making its decision, EPD plans to hold public hearings in early December in each of the four affected counties: Cobb, Carroll, Haralson and Paulding.

In its applications, one for each county, Colonial explained its Project ExCEL. In total, Colonial wants to install a 460-mile steel pipeline, three feet in diameter, next to two it already has between Jackson, La., and Austell. The company says the third pipeline is needed to resolve capacity limits that slow down petroleum shipments between the Gulf Coast refineries and markets in the Southeast, including Atlanta, and along the Eastern Seaboard.

Currently, the pipelines transport about 2.4 million barrels a day of petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and home heating oil. The proposed pipeline would expand capacity by about one-third, to 3.2 million barrels a day. One barrel is the equivalent of 42 gallons.

Colonial plans to begin construction of the third pipeline in the second quarter of 2011 and complete it in late 2012. The third pipeline would require a permanent 25-foot easement across 600 tracts of land owned by about 500 individuals, families and businesses.

In Cobb, Colonial wants to veer away from its current pipelines for 2.1 miles to follow a Georgia Power easement and a railroad right-of-way, in order to avoid a densely populated area in Powder Springs. It would need to cross through three wetlands and seven waterways, according to the Cobb application.

According to Colonial, the hearings have been scheduled for the following dates and locations, each beginning at 7 p.m.

• Dec. 4 in Haralson County at the Bremen Senior Center, 425 River Circle.

• Dec. 8 in Carroll County at the Villa Rica Civic Center, 1605 Highway 61.

• Dec. 9 in Paulding County at the Hiram Community Center, 219 Main St.

• Dec. 15 in Cobb County at the Ford Center Reception Hall at the Coach George E. Ford Cultural Arts and Community Center of Powder Springs, 4181 Atlanta St.