PORT ARTHUR — Williams Field Services wants to install a liquid ethane pipeline within the Port Arthur city limits, but that may be just a pipe dream if the company does not make more of an effort to work with property owners along the pipeline corridor.

Port Arthur residents voiced their concerns about the possible construction of an ethane pipeline along their property lines at the Port Arthur City Council meeting Tuesday morning. Residents and council members worried that land along the proposed pipeline would be seized through eminent domain litigation instead of fair negotiations with property owners and the Williams Co., the parent company of Williams Field Services.

“They’re willing to work with us, but I believe this is the lady [attorney] suing me for condemnation of my property. I can’t fight them,” Dan Hardin, a Port Arthur resident, said during the public hearing at the meeting. “Once they put that pipeline on my property, I’ll never be able to sell it to nobody.”

“They’re not playing fair.”

Representatives from the Tulsa-based energy infrastructure company responded to residents’ and council members’ concerns at the meeting. The company’s attorney, Jill McCarthy Arntz, said that the Williams Co. did not want to resort to seizing the land through eminent domain.

But if negotiations between property owners and the company cannot come to a pass, the two entities may have to go to court to see if Williams has a right to the land. The court would have to determine whether the liquid ethane pipeline constitutes a public use. If so and Williams secures the land, then all property owners would be justly compensated under the eminent domain clause in the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Martin Flood does not want compensation, nor does he want a pipeline buried in his soil. He said Williams was evasive about how the company wanted to construct the pipeline, not giving clear answers about pipeline dimensions during meetings with property owners.

“The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing,” the Port Arthur resident and former councilman said at the public hearing during Tuesday’s meeting. “But I can tell you this: I cannot give an answer if they don’t know what they want.”

Flood said he had received a copy of the State of Texas Landowner’s Bill of Rights in the mail at the onset of pipeline discussions with Williams, and to him, that was not a neighborly, cooperative gesture.

“This is what I’m asking council to do today — to deny their permit and tell all pipelines that come through the City of Port Arthur that they must deal with the landowners first before they can acquire a permit to operate,” Flood said. “If they push this eminent domain stuff, there’s going to be blood in the water, the sharks are going to smell it and the pipeline is going to come in.”

Arntz said the company was required to provide property owners with a copy of the Landowner’s Bill of Rights and a property appraisal that justifies Williams’ initial offer. But she said the company would continue to work with property owners until negotiations break down.

District 3 Councilman Morris Albright III said he had never received so many phone calls from concerned citizens about a potential pipeline in the past five years, “which means something went wrong fast.” He said it was the city government’s duty to protect its residents, which could involve helping residents’ retain legal counsel if they could not afford it.

“My recommendation is that everybody go back and regroup and start playing fair,” he said.

The proposed pipeline would originate in Mont Belvieu, running through a BP pipeline and tying into an already existing pipeline on the West side of Port Arthur, said Ross Blackketter, director of public works. A 12-inch line would run 4.2 miles near 60th Street, along an existing pipeline corridor, and a 10-inch line would snake 4.7 miles along the East side of town. Williams bought a section of pipeline that would connect those two sections, Blackketter said.

Ron Hawksworth of Williams Field Service said the pipeline would cross 32 different landowners’ property — 14 private and 18 industrial.

Ethane is a natural gas liquid that is used in the production of plastics, chemicals and synthetic rubber, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Products that use ethane for their production include plastic bags, antifreeze and detergent.

bcrum@panews.com