Cross-county lines piping in short-term economic boost|[12/16/07]
Published 12:00 am Sunday, December 16, 2007
A quickly blackening night sky overhead is soothing after another day “on the lines.”
For Nathan Putman, his brother, Jimmy, and his wife, Pamela, the stars are a welcome sight as they relax outside Nathan’s 36-foot Big Sky Montana RV.
“Sometimes you get a break,” said Nathan, a foreman for Associated Pipe Line Contractors. “But I’m on the road eight months out the year.”
The Putman brothers are two of about 300 workers on two multistate natural gas pipelines under construction in Warren County by two separate Houston-based energy companies.
One is the 240-mile East Texas to Mississippi Expansion Project, starting in northwest Louisiana and cutting across south Vicksburg and east Warren County before ending in Simpson County. It is being built by Gulf South Pipeline LP and is expected to begin carrying gas by Jan. 1.
The other is the 270-mile Southeast Supply Header, a pipeline connecting hubs in Delhi, La,. and Coden, Ala., just south of Mobile. Planned jointly by Spectra Energy Corp. and CenterPoint Energy Inc., it runs through southern Warren County near Yokena and could begin carrying gas by June 2008.
Once in service, both will carry more than 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas daily.
Initial estimates on permanent, post-construction jobs have dropped a bit since both pipelines were announced — from 15 to 10 on the Spectra line.
Shortcomings on job creation and economic impact prompted Warren County supervisors, in this election year, to renege on pledges to grant fee-in-lieu waivers both companies sought last year. They would have lowered property taxes for each by thousands of dollars in the first 10 years of pipeline service. Without the waivers, the two projects will add about $4 million to city, county and school income each year.
There is a short-term boost to the local private economy. Since arriving in the area almost four months ago, the workers have provided are an infusion of dollars into the local economy officials expect to last through 2008.
Speculative as it may be to track how much each worker’s presence has affected the Vicksburg business climate, taxes paid to tourism venues tell the story — much like revenue taxes indicate business trends at Mississippi casinos.
A 1 percent levy on food, beverages, hotel rooms and bar tabs in the city netted the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau $78,234.75 in September, when work began in earnest on the Gulf South line.
Bill Seratt, the tourism agency’s executive director, agreed the workers’ presence played a part in that 10 percent jump over the previous September.
“There’s been an increase in the rentals market,” Seratt said.
Receipts for October showed $79,411.13 was paid to the agency, reflecting an 11 percent jump from the previous October.
Others have joined Seratt in calling it a short-term boost, with a longer-term jolt expected from those who working to start the ethanol plant under construction at the Port of Vicksburg.
“They will make a tremendous impact,” said Wayne Mansfield, executive director of the Warren County Port Commission, adding attempts by Gov. Haley Barbour to market Mississippi as an “energy state” are paying off.
In May, the county’s economic development arm contracted with T.G. Mercer Consulting Services to use space at Ceres Research and Industrial Interplex for placing and hauling sections of the Spectra pipeline.
While the lodging and apartment sectors have found spaces for a stream of renters, sites for RVs like River Town Campground on U.S. 61 South have been a tough ticket.
“You can’t get a space at all in Jackson,” Putman said.
About 95 percent of the 108 spaces at the campground are taken — with half of it occupied either by pipeline or ethanol plant workers, said operator Jim McLeod.
Workers who have chosen to stay in Vicksburg while on the job have rented spaces at apartments and hotels, relieving what The Crossings manager Kellye Copes said is a slow time of the year for signing new tenants.
“It’s been a help to me,” Copes said. “They’re tired of staying in hotels.”
“One called, then 10,” said Annie Wright, manager of the Apple Orchard complex on Blossom Lane. “They love the complex.”
As for hotel sales, boosts have been measured at less expensive lodging venues — so-called “B properties.”
In particular, places like Comfort Inn have fit the bill for workers on limited company stipends, said Julie Ford, director of sales for Jackson-based Southern Hospitality Services, which owns both it and Holiday Inn Express on East Clay Street.
“We get at least four phone calls a day for living arrangements,” said Ford.
A third new pipeline through Warren County is likely on the way.
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP and Energy Transfer Partners LP will begin studying a 494-mile transmission line of varying sizes to from Bennington, Okla., just across the Texas line, to Butler, Ala., southeast of Meridian. Preliminary maps have the line, dubbed the Midcontinent Express, following roughly the same route through Warren County as the Gulf South line, continuing across U.S. 61 South just north of Grange Hall Road, crossing Fisher Ferry Road, Mississippi 27 then the Hinds County line near the southern end of Bovina Cut-Off Road.
Site prep officials with that pipeline, proposed by the natural gas arm of the bulk cargo giant with operations in Vicksburg, indicated it won’t seek any local property tax breaks. Also, they have said, dealings with landowners will go smoother than with the Spectra and Gulf South projects.
In 2006, Gulf South Pipeline LP filed at least seven eminent domain suits in Warren County Chancery Court against local landowners as the company attempted to purchase easements to build the East Texas to Mississippi Expansion Project. Eight other federal cases were filed in Monroe against landowners in DeSoto Parish.
Despite company officials’ view of legal action as a last resort, 20 eminent domain suits have been filed in the past two months in federal courts in Louisiana and Mississippi by companies building the 270-mile Southeast Supply Header natural gas pipeline through the two states. Most cases have involved land in Madison Parish.
In Warren County, pipeline officials have been involved in a dispute over how close it runs relative to the Loosa Yokena archaeological site between U.S. 61 South and the Mississippi River.
A cultural artifacts expert has been hired by the company to monitor construction near the historic area, Spectra officials have said.
Aside from those and other specialists, workers like the Putmans figure to stay busy, thanks to the emergence of natural gas-fired electricity.
Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico in 2004 and 2005 forced companies’ hand as to come up with ways to get natural gas from one place to another, Spectra spokesman Gretchen Krueger said.
“There was production going on with no way to get it,” Krueger said.
Officials with all three companies plan to move natural gas along the lines running through Warren County to markets on the East Coast.
According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, regulatory processes are expected to begin for 25 pipeline and 21 liquefied natural gas projects around the Southeast in 2007.
Pipelines bring safety concerns.
On Friday, near Delhi, a natural gas pipeline owned by NiSource ruptured, killing one motorist and injuring another on Interstate 20. The explosion shut down the highway for hours.