Fullstream Goff Connector Pipeline is a Sneaking Snake on the WV Landscape

The strange no-name pipeline — snaking across the local hills & valleys

>>> Community interest report by S. Tom Bond, Lewis County, WV, September 20, 2018

I have been noticing a clearing along I-79 between Lost Creek and Quiet Dell for a few weeks. It goes across the highway from hilltop to hilltop in an East-West direction. Lately it turned into a pipeline, something I am interested in, so decided to trace it across country by driving other roads.

First I found it along the old road to Clarksburg just north of Mt. Clare. I stopped to talk to the two women dressed in work clothes with the highly visible vests the gatekeepers along highways wear. When I asked the name of the pipeline one of them told me it was “Fullflow.” When I checked that on the net, there was no such entry, very strange. I judged she had been “spoofing” me.

Next time I went to Clarksburg I drove out through Quiet Dell towards Philippi. At the bottom of the hill beyond the tiny town, it showed up again. There is a supply company just beyond that sells the kind of things they might need on the pipeline and knowing these people like to use local businesses to get local support, I went in. An innocent looking young woman was at the counter. I asked if the pipeline people bought stuff there. Yes they did. “Do they pay cash?,” I enquired. “No,” was the now hesitant answer. “What company’s check is it?,” I asked. At this point the answer was evasive, noncommittal. I thanked her and left the store.

On the way back to I-79, I stopped to enquire of the two male gatekeepers at the road. One lazy guy slumped in a chair said he “forgot” the name of the pipeline. (“Forgot who pays your wage,” I thought, “liar with your pants on fire.”) The Puerto Rician, being more polite by nature, went on to give some more complicated answer, which did not contain the name of the pipeline. By this time I suspected everyone connected with it had orders to not give the name.

I stopped at the bank at Lost Creek, about two miles South of the pipeline, on the way back home. The official at the bank said he had no idea what it was called, either, averring he wasn’t interested so long as it was not on him. This I judged this to be true by his tone, but that only increased the strangeness, because he almost surely is a Chamber of Commerce type. We talked further and he suggested I go to the DEP site on the net.

That site , toward the bottom, lists the Goff Connector Pipeline with a description:

The project will disturb approximately 285.9 acres of land for the installation of 20.26 miles of 24-inch steel natural gas pipeline in Harrison County West Virginia.

Using the CLICK HERE button shows (after a long wait for the ArcGIS map to come up) the line running from a compressor station on an old strip mine in Easternmost Harrison County, near where Harrison, Barbor and Taylor Counties come together, to a point near Reynoldsville, just south of Simpson Fork. It swings south along the route to cross I-79 where I found it. There are many little yellow lines off the big yellow line, presumably spurs to be built. The map also shows several more pipelines in other colors.

The compressor station, located at the Eastern end, near Barbour and Taylor, is described in a legal ad in an obscure Clarksburg newspaper aimed at the Business community as follows:

The proposed natural gas compressor facility project is located in Harrison County, WV and will include the construction of a 13.7 acre gravel pad, vehicular access entrances, and stormwater management controls. This site is the re-development of a former coal strip mine. Goff Connector LLC’s gathering operations at this facility will include compressor skids, a control building, dehydration equipment, and various other natural gas equipment. 0.5902 acres of PEM wetlands occurring on mine spoil will be filled with on-site soils and a gravel pad cap. The fill impacts to these wetlands will be mitigated via on-site wetland creation.

The company named in the publication is out of state, of course: Goff Connector LLC, 17806 IH-10 Suite, 300 San Antonio, TX 78257. It is a typical West Virginia development, out of state company, out of state money, out of state labor, and definitely out of state benefit and profit. A few local businessmen provide services and that is it. West Virginia mineral extraction! The damage is left here in WV, of course.

Having a name to work with, I googled “Goff Connector Pipeline.” Among other things I found a North American Oil and Gas Pipelines article entitled North American Pipeline Project Roundup: June 2018 which includes this item:

“C.J. Hughes Pipeline was awarded a contract by Fullstream Goff Connector LLC to install approximately 20.5 miles of 24-in. pipeline in Harrison County, West Virginia. Headquarters is Clarksburg, West Virginia. The superintendent is Jackie Berryman. Approximate start date: April 19.”

Elsewhere The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond mentions it as one of six big projects adding over 600 miles in WV.

If we assign an approximate cost of $10,000,000 a mile, based on a recent survey, the cost would be in the neighborhood of $200 million for the project.

This financial magnitude is a construction that normally would get a lot of newspaper and TV attention. It involves big money, and is carried out insight of thousands of people. Why the silence? As times pass, resistance grows. Natural gas has too many problems: damage to property and environment encourages those hurt to organize; gas looks less attractive because of sensational explosions and the publicity they get; and the ever growing certainty of global warming with more and more research and the hurricanes. Since there is a problem with the failure of fracking companies to make money, even the sources of money for fracking adventures have second thoughts.

Payment for pipelines is relatively secure, because utilities (with guaranteed profit) sign up to have them built, but the structure is rotting from the bottom, the production end.

Time has come when the resistance is having an effect and the industry would like to quietly slide into place and guarantee as much profit as possible before the now clearly visible end.

Tagged as: drilling, fossil fuels, fracking, land disturbances, marcellus shale, natural gas, pipeline, public nuisance, WV-DEP