Neon-pink flags poke up from the black bottomland swamps here along a 210-mile stretch through east Georgia, rising from tangled underbrush and across murky creekbeds.

Each marks a 50-foot-wide path of the proposed Palmetto Pipeline that's sparked one of the most remarkable battles over property rights in Georgia in recent memory.

A powerful trifecta of business forces, environmental groups and political leaders has united to fight the proposal from Kinder Morgan, the Texas company charting the fuel pipeline's three-state course. Some of the landowners have already given up swaths of their property for towering transmission cables and roadways, but they draw the line at a pipeline for an area with no shortage of fuel.

State leaders in Georgia and South Carolina have recently thrown up new legal hurdles that threaten the construction. But for all the pushback, the project remains very much in play.

About the Author

Keep Reading

Georgia Lt. Gov. Lester Maddox, angry about an article, burns a copy of The Atlanta Constitution in the state Senate on March 10, 1971, saying the paper did not have the "guts, integrity, manhood or decency" to report the situation accurately. (AJC file)

Credit: AP FILE

Featured

Ja’Quon Stembridge, shown here in July at the Henry County Republican Party monthly meeting, recently stepped from his position with the Georgia GOP. (Jenni Girtman for the AJC)

Credit: Jenni Girtman