Lawsuit claims maple trees cut for ‘no reason’

BY REGGIE SHEFFIELD

Correspondent

A New Milford family wants their land back and has demanded compensation for over 500 trees cut down on their property over two years ago for a pipeline their attorney says will never be built.

The Holleran family said in papers filed in court earlier this month that over 500 trees cut down on their property for the proposed Constitution Pipeline project were cut down for no reason.

Operated by the Houston, Texas, based Williams Companies, the Constitution Pipeline would – if built – convey natural gas to millions of homes in New York over 125 miles from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale.

In early March 2016 armed U.S. Marshals patrolled the Holleran’s 23-acre farm to protect workers removing the trees.  They were allowed to do so under the terms of an injunction forbidding the Hollerans from interfering with the workers.

Earlier this month attorney Carolyn Elefant asked a judge to lift the injunction on the grounds it is no longer necessary because, she maintains, the project will never be built because New York regulators have refused to issue a necessary environmental permit known as a Section 401 permit.

“The continued injunction has, and will continue to wreak severe hardship on the Landowners who continue to play involuntary host to a multi-billion company that has not paid a dime of compensation for the occupation and destruction of the Landowners’ trees, land and business, or the retaliatory harassment inflicted on them for exercising their First Amendment rights to oppose occupation of their property,” Elefant wrote in papers filed in federal district court.

In the meantime, Elefant maintains, the Holleran family has been without the use of their property and will never again enjoy use of the trees that were cut down.  Many of the trees, some of which were over 200 years old, were maple trees the family was looking forward to tapping for maple syrup.

“This case is important because their property was taken for a project that cannot be built and my clients are entitled to have ownership of the property returned to them and to be compensated for the extreme amount of damage that was caused to it,” Elefant said in an interview last week.

Elefant said she would not expect the court to make a decision until later this year.

But a spokesperson for the Constitution Pipeline project said that Elefant’s legal move is premature since contrary to what she maintains state regulators have still not given them a final say.

Lawyers for the Constitution Pipeline have asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to revisit its decision that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation did not waive a requirement that the pipeline get Clean Water Act Section 401 certification.

Christopher L. Stockton, a spokesperson for Constitution, said that even if the FERC denies their request they will then appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“We continue to believe that the project should be allowed to proceed with construction. The project represents much-needed energy infrastructure designed to bring natural gas to a region of the country that this past winter experienced the highest natural gas prices in the world,” Stockton said in a prepared release.