Pipeline Would Pass Through Hundreds of Waterways
U.S Army Corps of Engineers documents show that a planned pipeline project in Kentucky would affect more than 750 rivers, streams, wetlands and ponds during construction. The proposed Bluegrass Pipeline would carry natural gas liquids through more than a dozen Kentucky counties on the way to the Gulf of Mexico.
The Courier-Journal obtained a wetlands destruction permit submitted to the Corps of Engineers in December by the pipeline builders. The permit says the construction would require digging trenches through most of the waterways or drilling underneath others, as well as maintaining a 50-foot cleared right of way.
Opponents of the pipeline say construction would do lasting damage to the waterways.
The permit has since been withdrawn and the pipeline's builders have pushed back a proposed construction completion date to the end of 2016.