Pipeline Route Communities Sell Out for Pocket Change

Hear that sound? It's Williams Company execs laughing themselves sick about how cheaply Kentucky communities prostituted their land, their residents and their future.

In the first cycle of the Bluegrass Pipeline Community Grant Program, 17 organizations in Kentucky have received a total of $136,000 in grants to fund projects that directly benefit counties traversed by the pipeline project. 

Grants were awarded in late December for a variety of projects ranging from new equipment for first responders to wildlife habitat enhancement and conservation education. The following organizations in Kentucky received funds during this first cycle of the grant program:

$136,000 divided by 17 grantees is $8,000 each. That's a fucking insult. *

But we've already established what these organizations are, so let's see what their whoring buys them.

Eight grand will barely buy a singe hazmat suit for the first responders who will confront the deadly gases rising from the toxic waste that leaks or spills or explodes from the pipeline.

Eight grand won't "enhance," much less replace thousands of acres of prime farmland permanently polluted by toxic fracking waste leaking from the pipeline. Eight hundred million wouldn't do that.

Eight grand won't "educate" a single child in a family who can't escape from polluted land because no one will buy it.

The Bluegrass Pipleline is a death trap - for landowners, for communities, for the Bluegrass Region and for the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

From Corlia Logsdon, a leader of the Pipeline Opposition:

Kentucky needs your help to stop the Bluegrass hazardous liquids pipeline from abusing eminent domain and taking families' and farmers' land rights.  We have learned from an inside source that the pipeline company has paid people who know nothing about what it really is to call the legislature in support of the pipeline.

People are being misled.  They are being told this is a natural gas line, which it is not.  It is a hazardous liquids pipeline that would carry fracked byproducts from states ranging from Pennsylvania to Louisiana.  If completed, the line will cause increased fracking throughout this region.  Further, if the Kentucky legislator does not stop the company from abusing eminent domain, it will be open season on families and farmers across the state.

Please call the free legislative hotline today and every day throughout January at:

1-800-372-7181

Please tell them:

1.  The county you live in.
2.  That your message is to go to all state legislators in the House and Senate.
3.  That you support Senator Jimmy Higdon's Senate Bill 14.
4.  Tell them you want them to stop the Bluegrass Pipeline and other private companies from abusing eminent domain.
5.  Tell the House leadership and your representative should also hear that we want a strong eminent domain bill styled after Sen. Higdon's Senate bill 14.

If you are not from Kentucky, please explain why you feel this is important.  Even though this is a Kentucky issue, the legislature's decision will directly impact every state along the route of this line from Pensylvania to Louisiana.  About 20% of the country's people get water from the Ohio River and its tributaries.  We cannot allow continued fracking to destroy ground water.  Stop the Bluegrass pipeline and fracking infrastructure today!   Please also share this message with friends, families, and other groups you are involved in.

*Just for shits and giggles, here is the list of Williams Company execs and how much filthy lucre they rake in every year. The CEO gets $6.9 million, so $136,000 is about a week and half's pay.