Cooper: Still A Chance To Block Gas Compressor Planned For Joelton

Congressman Jim Cooper believes there’s still a chance of blocking plans to build a gas compressor that has angered many residents of Joelton.

But it’ll take pressuring federal regulators from all angles.

Energy company Kinder Morgan wants to put the compressor on land just north of I-24. The company says it is needed to move natural gas from fields in the northeast to the Gulf Coast.

But it needs approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington. Cooper said he believes those regulators have to consider the compressor’s noise and potential for toxic emissions.

“When you hit them with a strong moral argument, they know it’s true,” Cooper said last week, after more than 100 people turned out for a community meeting in Joelton on the compressor proposal.

“None of them live by a gas compressor station. None of them want to. So why don’t they do all they can to minimize the harm to our community?”

The Democratic lawmaker says Tennessee’s other members of Congress could help, although that’s unlikely because energy policy has become too partisan for Republicans to get involved.

Cooper also wants state and local leaders to keep the pressure on.

He cited a Metro ordinance that added compressors to the list of emitters of industrial gases as a potentially helpful change. The law could be incorporated into Nashville’s clean-air plan, which would give the Environmental Protection Agency jurisdiction over the compressor.

But Cooper says the most effective opposition comes from Joelton residents.

Yet their ability to wage a campaign against the project seems to be running out.

They’ve spent more than $30,000 so far — mostly on lawyers and consultants — trying to force Kinder Morgan to move the compressor. But they estimate they’ll need as much as $75,000 more if they want to fight it out to the end.