My boss went thru the same thing 4 years ago. He wanted to convert an old warehouse that he already owned trucks he owned where already going down the streets also to his new 20 million dollar terminal. Well a bunch of idiots in the city got their knickers in a bunch and protested his plans. Now he was doing this with zero TIF or property tax breaks for the buildings meaning more money for the local schools also. The NIMBY’s started screaming the trucks will ruin our neighborhood to their friends and well he said screw it I will just use part of the land I own now at my current terminal in the country.
Bottom line was a city and school district that needed the tax revenue his new terminal would have brought in lost out of an estimated 800 grand a year in property taxes. Our employees lost a shorter commute as we are 9 miles outside the city limits.
I’ve been watching a cell tower go up along my commute to the railroad. Right now the tower is complete and the antennae are installed - but there is no coax running up to tower to feed the antennae. I noticed that - John Q. Public probably wouldn’t.
Not quite next door but I did grow up with a products pipeline running parallel to an arterial street one block north of our house. Not an issue to anybody.
I live in the Central IL Natural gas Storage area. During the summer the local gas company is pumping it into the underground storage areas. During the winter they pump it out. They store an estimated 25 Trillion cubic feet of pressurized natural gas in a 15 square mile area in this area. Those that have lived here long enough say if it all went boom we would be the first town on the moon.
There’s a 36" natural gas line 150 feet from my office window. There’s a huge set of power lines 100 feet from my office window. The Dakota Access Pipeline (crude oil) is being put in 2-1/2 miles south of my office. Since I need and want natural gas, electricity and gasoline, I feel this is the price of progress.
BTW, there is a natural gas pipline (not local) about a block from my home. But it is hardly in the same league as oil pipelines, which seem to leak fairly often.
A classic case of delayed NIMBYism took place in the Pittsburgh, PA area a number of years ago. The Allegheny County Airport simply could not be expanded to handle the then new jet aircraft; private property had been developed all around the airport.
So the powers that be found undeveloped space 45 minutes west of downtown for what is now Greater Pittsburgh International Airport. This space was really too hilly for an airport but there just isn’t any other kind around Pittsburgh. It’s chief advantage was that there were only a very few homes in the area to be bothered by noise.
By the time the airport opened, there were residential developments close by with homes being sold because of the easy access to the airport. And about a year later those same home buyers started complaining about the noise.
The folks planning Denver International did it right. Airport property is 52 square miles. No nimbys going to be building close to the airport for some time.
You got me there. It only seems like I live there.
There is a gasoline pipeline running within a half mile of my house. Also, an interstate highway and a rail line within a half mile of my house. There are a lot of things more dangerous than crude oil being moved within a half mile of my house, and I live in the flight path of a fairly busy airport, so there’s dangerous stuff flying over my head as well.
I know you’ll say that it’s not right next door, but I wonder if you underestimate how much open space there really is on the prairies. Does “right next door” on the indian reservation in question involve feet, miles, or dozens of miles? The pipeline that was recently installed south of my office goes through open corn and bean fields. I’d say 95% of the farmhouse in the area are at least 1/4 mile away from the pipeline. The reservations tend to be fairly sparsly populated outside of the agency housing areas.
It’s interesting to observe that to many posters here when it comes to NIMBYism the ordinary man is always a dolt, but when it comes to firearms the ordinary man is wise and capable.
Do they leak more often, or is it just more media coverage when they do? There have been some pretty spectacular NG leaks.
Those who would like to see crude and coal cease to be energy sources tend to favor natural gas. So of course it is in their best interests to “promote” issues with oil.
Natural gas being next on the hit list. Never giving a thought to what they would be doing for transportation, heat, cooling and light if it weren’t for the exertions of the bad old fossil-fuel people.