Natural Gas Pipeline Coming To Jefferson County
By Gordon Hopkins
The presence of hundreds of long, green pipes south of Fairbury, just off Highway 8, has not gone unnoticed by locals. Those pipes are the property of Tallgrass Energy and will be used to construct a pipeline that will transport natural gas across the County.
Representatives with Tallgrass Energy gave an update on the project to Jefferson County Commissioners at a meeting on Tuesday, December 12, 2023.
“We’ve got a project going on. And you guys have probably seen a bunch of our trucks,” said Dustin Bashford, Segments President-Natural Gas. “I regret and apologize that the notification, sort of the communication, wasn’t made ahead of time. That’s not typically how we like to work. And so, I can assure you, that won’t happen again.”
Bashford added, “We like to be very proactive with our communication. And so, the last thing we want is for a bunch of the communities that we operate in to start seeing, you know, hundreds of trucks with a bunch of pipe on it and wondering what the heck’s going on.”
Bashford said, “The trucks were moving the pipeline from a barge to a pipe yard that is actually located in Jefferson County. So, we appreciate that. That is our staging area effectively for the pipeline until we start construction.”
The project is called the Rockies Express natural gas pipeline and will span from Wyoming to Ohio, traversing much of Nebraska, including Jefferson County. “This particular project, it’s about 20 miles of 36-inch natural gas pipeline,” said Bashford, who confirmed all the pipe has been delivered.
The project is expected to begin construction in late winter and be completed sometime in mid-2024.
Once complete, the pipeline is expected to carry up to 800,000 dekatherms (one million Btu) a day.
County Commissioner Mark Schoenrock asked, “Is there a map that shows the actual route that will be coming to Nebraska and through Jefferson County?”
Scott Prestidge, Manager of State and Local Public Affairs for Tallgrass, told commissioners, “So, we do have some information on that that we can share. We have to be a little bit mindful for privacy and security reasons.”
Another Tallgrass pipeline project planned for Nebraska is called the Trailblazer, a CO2 pipeline.
A carbon dioxide (CO2) pipeline transports CO2 from an industrial process that separates the gas and then transports it to another location for sequestration and storage. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and the purpose is to prevent that gas from entering the atmosphere.
Despite earlier reports that suggested that pipeline might also cross Jefferson County, Kyle Quackenbush, Segment President – Liquids (Crude Oil and CO2), said, “We actually don’t have any planned CO2 infrastructure in Jefferson County.”
