Invasion of the Gas Company

Columbia Gas wants to bulldoze a 25-ft swath through our farm…on an easement the title company never told us about. This isn’t all bad. They’ll be going through an area that’s mostly clear anyway, including a part where I wanted to put an access road. They’ll be taking down some dead trees and providing us with a lot of firewood and/or mulch.

It’s not all good, either.

The pipe they want to maintain goes right under the middle of our catchment basin, the one we wanted to turn into a fish pond, the one where the water from the eastern half of the property all drains to be diverted down the hill to the creek, which flows into Alum Creek. It also looks like we could lose most, if not all, of our pawpaw trees as well as one of the black walnuts. I’m also concerned that in dumping stuff on either side of the easement, they may end up trashing a portion of where I was going to put in a garden next year.

We have title insurance. Once the guy from the gas company sends us his paperwork on the easement (I’m assuming they probably do have one, but I want to see it first), it looks like we’ll be filing a claim. It’d be nice if we can get some kind of compensation for the trees we’re losing and use that money to buy more trees to plant elsewhere.

The pond is a problem, though. The guy who was there painting orange X’s on trees didn’t indicate whether they’d be reshaping the pond when they’re done or filling it in or what. The middle of the property–where I’m going to be putting the new garden–gets swampy enough. I don’t want it to flood completely, especially if it’s going to flood up into the chicken paddocks. I’m guessing we’ll probably have to end up digging a pond north of the easement, and then have an artificial creek to lead overflow over the surface and down into the natural creek. That ain’t free.

He also said that while they “only” need to clear 25 feet wide, the actual easement may be as much as 40 or 50 feet. When we bought the place, the only easement mentioned was a six-foot wide one belonging to the phone company along the southern edge of our property. I don’t know that that’s any longer in use, though, and it’s a good thing, since we have a shed there that I’m about to convert into a hen house. (I should still be able to move it if necessary, but I’m not gonna unless the phone company tells me to.)