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
