Residents and nonprofits resist massive pipeline expansion in the Piedmont

Lisa Schehr sits inside a dimly lit den in the westernmost corner of her family home in Wallburg. She’s surrounded by the remnants of her late grandfather’s antique collection and sun-worn family portraits. 

"I was on my grandfather’s shoulders when he bought this property in 1976," Schehr says, half-sunk into a sectional. "It’s definitely a place where my grandfather wanted to leave it to all of us and he knew we’d want it to be our home. 

From that heightened vantage point, a 10-year-old Schehr watched her grandfather, Seldon Holiday, enter into an agreement to buy the land and by default, share it with the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corporation or Transco, whose pipeline sat inches below his feet.

Long before Holiday’s vision for the property, the framework for what would eventually become a 10,000-mile-long series of methane gas pipelines running from south Texas to New York City had already begun. 

The pipelines would inevitably have to run through private, commercial and public property. So, Transco, which would be acquired by Williams Companies in the 90s, paid property owners for easements. 

This would secure its rights to the land in perpetuity. 

A massive project

Now, Williams is looking to continue the expansion of its pipeline network through its latest project, the Transcontinental Pipeline Southeast Supply Enhancement Project. 

In total, the expansion will consist of 24 miles of new construction in Davidson, Forsyth and Guilford counties and 30.8 miles from Rockingham County north into Virginia. Its installation could affect thousands of households in the Piedmont, like Schehr's. 

Cooper Howell, an eminent domain attorney and partner at the Raleigh-based law firm, Hansen, Howell & Wilkie, explained how an easement works.

"In a permanent easement situation, the party trying to get an easement from you is trying to acquire the rights to use your property forever for the stated purpose, in this case, gas transmission, or for any future purposes that would be related," says Howell.

In his experience, Howell said\, it’s the easement holder that usually wins a legal challenge. At best, property owners walk away with some extra cash for the value of their land. 

The current proposed expansion marks the third time the Holiday property has been altered by pipeline construction since the family bought it nearly 50 years ago. 

Back in Wallburg, Schehr weaves a golf cart through the trees and brush that make up the woods behind her family home. 

There are well-defined tracks and ruts along the ground from years of walking and full-throttle racing on motorcycles and four-wheelers. The Holiday woods have been a playground for generations. 

Loose stones fly and twigs snap under the tires of the golf cart as Schehr brings it to a stop at the edge of a steep drop. 

"It’s a pretty deep gully, I have no idea how deep," Schehr says. "I don’t know what they’re gonna do with this new pipe, you know, it’s gonna be over here somewhere according to them."

Schehr points at a corridor of roughly trimmed meadow that runs as far as the eye can see, separating a field of tall grass from a patch of forest on both sides. 

It’s a common sight for anyone who's ever looked out the window during a road trip. The narrow strip of grass runs through farmland and up mountains. It crosses rivers all along the East Coast and sometimes branches off in different directions. 

Below that land sits the pipeline.

"You can see the pipeline as it goes down this hill and actually it’s a different view if this tree hadn’t fallen; it just fell recently," Schehr says. 

The new pipeline itself will be about 42 inches in diameter, just a bit wider than a hula hoop. Though it’ll be buried, the land above it will have to remain accessible to Williams at all times.

The company will come in, create a construction radius for all the machinery needed to install and maintain the pipeline, and require that the land not be used for any other purpose. 

That means anything on it now, including a portion of Schehr’s woods and a barn built by Seldon Holiday himself, could be taken down. 

Schehr motions at the barn. The roof is mossy, its walls weathered by time and humidity. Gnarled branches surround the structure as if attempting to reclaim the wood it's made from. 

"We’ve seen a couple of different drawings from Transco where they want this pipeline to go," Schehr says. "The first one would be taking out this barn."

Feeling misled

It was December of last year when Schehr’s mom, Barbara, opened a letter from Williams. The company offered $500 to cooperating landowners as they began the surveying process. 

The letter used words like “expansion” and “potential new facilities” to describe the reason for the survey. But Schehr said it didn’t make clear Williams would be installing a new pipeline through their property.  

The letter also said landowners would be notified before anyone entered their property or survey work started. 

"They’ve totally ignored all of that," Schehr said. "We were here one day in the kitchen cooking and my sister said who are these two guys behind the bushes here and they were right here near the house and they had already been served papers that they were not allowed to come on the property. I would say they’ve broken that numerous times, at least five or six times."

When asked about these instances, a Williams spokesperson said the company works with landowners to schedule survey activities. They emphasized their commitment to transparency in the process. 

While the company did reply to this inquiry, they did not respond to a WFDD request for interview for this story. 

In terms of what happens next, it’ll be a while before Schehr knows more about Williams’ proposed construction on her land. 

In late October, the company submitted a project application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, the agency in charge of handling large energy infrastructure projects. 

That kicked off a permitting process that could last a few years. According to Williams’ own timeline, if all goes according to plan, its new lines will be in service by Nov. 1, 2027.

Money to be made

Alan Armstrong, Williams Companies’ chief executive officer and president, praised the projected profitability of the expansion during an earnings call in November of last year. 

"In terms of returns, we're not going to put that number out there right now, but I can tell you, it's one of the most attractive returns we've ever seen for any pipeline expansion of scale," Armstrong said. "And we're really excited, that capacity is precious, coming out of there."

The proposed development would increase Williams’ methane output in the area by nearly 30 percent. Armstrong said demand for energy along the East Coast has grown as more and more power-hungry data centers pop up.

Duke Energy of the Carolinas has already laid claim to the majority of that additional fuel for the coming years. 
 
According to the energy company, a greater focus on power generation through methane rather than coal would keep it on track to meet reduced carbon emission goals. 

In order to move ahead with the federal permitting process, Williams hosted several community informational meetings.

There were six in-person open houses in North Carolina, one in Virginia and one online. Combined, about 132 people attended.

But many had to find out another way. 

Working to inform

7 Directions of Service is a nonprofit with a history of fighting pipeline construction in the Piedmont. It reached out to businesses, churches, schools and residents who would be impacted by the pipeline through mailers and calls.

The organization also hosted community meetings for those who wanted to know more.
 
"So even if you do already have an easement on your land, it's worth talking to someone to renegotiate just to really have them look at the details of what that means just to see the advantages and the power that you do have," said Claire Spear while speaking to a room full of landowners during an informational meeting in Lexington last August. 

Spear, an environmental justice organizer for 7 Directions, said she’s often the first person to inform people there could be a new pipeline running through their home.  

"In calling these people, a lot of them have no idea about it or maybe they heard something but not enough and it's been years and they completely forgot so it feels new," she said.  

A history of failures

While many locals are still learning about the expansion, Williams’ proposed development has caught the eye of other nonprofits like the Washington state-based Pipeline Safety Trust. 

The watchdog organization was founded following the 1999 deaths of a young man and two children caused by the Olympic Pipeline explosion. 

Hailey Duncan is a policy advisor for the Trust. She said Williams doesn’t have a good history with methane pipeline-related incidents.  

"For the analysis that we did, we found that Williams does have some of the highest number of direct failures and then on top of that they had some of the highest fatalities by incident and fatalities caused by incident as well," Duncan said. 

In a July 2024 open letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, leadership at the nonprofit expressed concerns for the pipe’s structural integrity, especially when exposed to extreme weather events.

In cases of flooding, for example, extra water in the soil causes the air-filled pipes to become more buoyant, meaning they could rise to the surface and fracture in the process. 

A risk to public health 

It’s not just the pipes that pose a risk — it’s the infrastructure needed to transport the methane gas, including what are called compressor stations or pumps that keep pressure in the lines.

While some pumps will be modified to run off electricity, others, like one located on the outskirts of Lexington, will simply burn more fossil fuels. 

Caroline Hansley, a campaign organizing strategist with the Sierra Club, a nationwide environmental advocacy group, has spent years fighting for companies like Williams to adopt more environmentally responsible practices. 

"We know that methane extraction produces some of the most dangerous pollution so Williams Transco and their new proposed compressor stations, would emit particulates, sometimes fine particulates like formaldehyde, and we know that at any unsafe level, exposure of these pollutants can cause long term harm to respiratory and cardiovascular health," Hansley said. 

She added that impacts may be compounded due to the fact that multiple pipelines run through parts of the Piedmont. 

"In some places, landowners have up to four or five pipelines already crossing their land," Hansley said. "So cumulative impacts is also a major concern that we are raising and going to continue to bring up to FERC and other state and federal regulators who have authority over permitting this project moving forward."
 
In addition to these safety concerns Spear, from 7 Directions of Change, says very little of the positive economic impact of the new pipeline will be felt in the area it runs through. 

"Any long-term jobs are going to be contracted or mostly contracted out-of-state," Spear said. "I can’t say how specifically in each section it will go, but I know generally that does tend to be the case and they have stated as such." 

A set of documents submitted to the federal government by Williams indicates that construction in the area won’t last more than 18 months. According to the company, about half of the potential workforce for projects in the Piedmont would go to non-local workers.

Worried for the bees

Back on the northwestern face of the Holiday family property, an open field is abuzz with the sound of thousands of bees whizzing around in the tall grass. 

Schehr’s sisters Nicki Wagg and Dawn Overmyer are protected head-to-toe in beekeeping suits as they race against the setting sun to feed the bees sugar water and inspect their hives.   

After taking two years' worth of classes on beekeeping, the family celebrated its first full honey yield of about 220 pounds earlier this year. 

The three sisters are worried about how the sounds, smells and other impacts of construction near the hives will affect their already delicate ecosystem. 

Overmeyer laments the potential damage to their woods. 

"This is like something huge and our family enjoys this spot," she said. "Not only us, but our bees as well. It is gonna impact us."

An uncertain future

The best they can do is fight to get as much money as they can for the use of their land. In the coming months, maybe years, Schehr and her family will be locked in a legal battle with Williams. 

"We’ve all realized three years from now, the view is gonna change," Schehr said. "It’s gonna look absolutely different around here. So many trees are gonna go away. They’re widening a gap of land that’s just barren and you know, I think it’s disastrous and the neighbors feel the same way. All of them wish they would just go away."

They struggle to balance the hope that fighting back could save their land, with the daunting reality that Williams will likely move forward, as it has in the past.