Quail Ridge Banner
Below used with the courtesy of The Huntsville Times. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Use more base for pipeline, Sullivan says
 General offers optional route through arsenal, avoiding subdivisions

Original Publication Date: 5 August 2001
By STEVE DOYLE
Times Staff Writer steved@htimes.com

Maj. Gen. Al Sullivan says folks in Huntsville have always been good to the Army.

Before retiring next month as head of the Army Aviation and Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal, he plans to return the favor by suggesting what he believes is a safer route for a controversial liquid petroleum pipeline through the city.

Sullivan is convinced Colonial Pipeline Co. is going to bring the $300 million pipeline into Huntsville. If it's coming anyway, he said, he'd rather see the project meander through mostly undeveloped parts of the arsenal than past crowded subdivisions.

"If you're going to run it through Huntsville," Sullivan said, "why run it through a housing area when you can run it through an easement that we already have on the arsenal?

"We're trying to find a way to lessen the impact, using the arsenal, on the people here."

Colonial approached the Army months ago for permission to bring the underground steel pipeline across the arsenal along busy Martin Road. Before reaching the base, the pipeline - it would carry gasoline, diesel and jet fuel - would have ducked behind some neighborhoods off South Memorial Parkway.

Colonial spokesperson Grace McDougald and Lynn Leach of the Alabama Environmental Council discuss the pros and cons of the pipeline. Forum, A21. During an interview with The Times last week, Sullivan said he's going to ask the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees federal lands, to consider allowing Colonial to cross a less-developed part of the 38,000-acre base, away from large office buildings, sensitive government laboratories and homes.

He said the Army and NASA plan to build more offices and labs along Martin Road, the arsenal's main drag. A pipeline buried next to the road would create construction obstacles, he said.

And it doesn't make sense, he said, to bury a 20-inch-diameter pipeline a few hundred feet from the English Village, Sandhurst and Quail Ridge subdivisions. Many residents there are scared. Of leaks. Of environmental damage. Of falling property values.

Sullivan said he's received 30 or 40 e-mails and letters from people opposed to the pipeline in that location.

"It seems to me if we've got residents that are concerned, that pretty much keeps it out of residential areas," he said.

"If it's going to cross the arsenal - and I think that's a big 'if' at this juncture - then what we want to do is put it at the least objectionable places from our perspective."

Grace McDougald, a spokeswoman for Atlanta-based Colonial, said Wednesday she had not heard about Sullivan's idea. But she said the company is willing to consider other routes through the arsenal.

The company is determined to bring a pipeline into Huntsville and then on to Nashville, she said. Both metro areas have a huge appetite for petroleum products.

"This is something your area needs," McDougald said.

A better way?

Sullivan said he thinks the pipeline could weave safely through the arsenal by following Buxton, Patton and Toftoy roads, and a planned Southern Bypass. That route would take the pipeline past the Sparkman Center, the Army's main office complex, plus Redstone Army Airfield and part of Marshall Space Flight Center.

Diane Lombard, an outspoken pipeline critic, said she'd be "relieved and thankful" if the pipeline steers clear of her home on Villaret Drive in English Village. Sullivan's idea would push the pipeline about two miles west of the neighborhood.

But Lombard said she still worries about the pipeline coming near homes in other areas: rural Limestone County, Harvest, Toney.

"I feel good about us, but my heart still goes out to them," she said.

The route favored by Sullivan is not a sure thing. All he can do is make a recommendation to the Interior Department. Officials there could follow his advice, approve a different route or refuse to let Colonial cross the arsenal at all.

The Army initially thought it was up to Sullivan to approve or deny Colonial's request for a pipeline easement through the base. But Sullivan said a "fairly obscure" federal statute gives the Interior Department jurisdiction in this case.

The Mineral Lands and Mining Act says the secretary of the interior, currently Gale Norton, must OK any liquid petroleum pipeline that crosses land managed by two or more federal agencies. In Madison County, Colonial is proposing to come through land controlled by the Army and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Sullivan said he'll give interior officials a couple of pipeline routes that would be acceptable to the Army. And he said he'll do it before retiring Sept. 10. There's been speculation he would pass the sensitive decision to his successor, Maj. Gen. Larry J. Dodgen.

"I don't leave problems for somebody else," Sullivan said.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which manages the sprawling Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, could throw a wrench into Sullivan's idea.

His suggested pipeline route crosses a thin finger of refuge land on Patton Road. Sullivan said he didn't think that would be a problem, because refuge managers previously granted right-of-way there for Patton Road and a military rail line.

But Dwight Cooley, deputy manager of the refuge, said he doubts his agency would allow a new easement for a potentially dangerous pipeline. Cooley's boss, Tuck Stone, told Colonial several months ago that the refuge was probably off-limits.

"We have maintained (a pipeline) would be incompatible with crossing the refuge anywhere," Cooley said.

If the pipeline broke in that part of the arsenal, he said, fuel could get into Huntsville Spring Branch, which dumps into the Tennessee River.

Down in the pits

Colonial might have to open its hefty wallet in order to cross the arsenal.

Sullivan said the south end of the base is covered with old "detonation pits" - 20-foot-deep holes where the Army burned chemical and ballistic munitions after World War II. That ash and residue is still there, covered by dirt.

It doesn't pose a danger to the public, Sullivan said, but the Army needs to clean it up.

Colonial, one of America's richest pipeline operators with annual revenue of more than $500 million, could be forced to help pay the tab because there are several old pits along the Buxton-Patton pipeline route. Federal law requires those areas be cleaned up if they are ever disturbed by construction, Sullivan said.

"To the extent we can get (Colonial) to clean up environmental issues," he said, "then it would have a benefit to us."

Oil country

Sullivan said he thinks Huntsville needs a petroleum pipeline if it's going to prosper in the future.

To understand why, you don't have to dig too deep into his background. He's a native of Oklahoma, where pipelines dart beneath the dusty landscape like metal veins. Sullivan said he hunted and fished around the lines as a child and believes they are a safe way to transport fuel.

"People have lived with them there for years," he said. "They are not a problem. I can't remember anybody making a fuss over a petroleum pipeline while I was growing up."

Colonial is being run through the public wringer in North Alabama. People are signing petitions, holding anti-pipeline rallies and sending Sullivan e-mails about the company's spotty safety record. The U.S. Justice Department is suing Colonial for spilling about 3 million gallons of petroleum products into waterways across the Southeast.

Sullivan has heard some Huntsville residents say vibrations from engine tests at Redstone could cause the pipeline to crack. But the arsenal has miles of pipelines carrying water, sewage, steam and natural gas, and they've held up in previous tests, he said.

He's convinced the pipeline would push Huntsville International Airport to the next level. With better access to cheap fuel, he said, airlines might lower ticket prices and offer more nonstop flights.

Now, he said, it's a frustrating, all-day trip by plane from Huntsville to Army laboratories in Williamsburg, Va., or Corpus Christi, Texas.

"I can almost drive as fast as I can fly to some of these locations," he said.

Even though Sullivan supports the pipeline, he's got something in common with many pipeline foes: a soft spot for nature.

Sullivan considers himself a "tree hugger" and said he would never allow the pipeline to cross sensitive wetlands on the base. He said Colonial's pipeline would not bother any wetlands if it sticks close to the pavement on Buxton and Patton roads.

"Disturbing wetlands, that's a sin," he said. "You really don't want to go there."

As a commanding general, Sullivan said he can be sued for any decision he makes that compromises the environment.

"You get the nice view," he said, motioning toward a window in his fifth-floor office in the Sparkman Center, "but you get the liability that goes with it."



Return to Pipeline Info Page Return to Home Page