Macon-area residents push back on gas pipeline that would cut through 940 GA properties
Five homeowners in a Monroe County neighborhood may succeed in rerouting a natural gas pipeline planned to cut through their neighborhood — part of a project that is set to cross 940 properties statewide.
The $3.5 billion project by Kinder Morgan is known as the South System Expansion 4, and has been commonly referred to as SSE4. It’s designed to help meet “growing power generation and local distribution company demand in the Southeast,” according to Kinder Morgan’s website.
But residents living on the ground above are worried about the negatives of the project, and they’ve filed a formal complaint seeking to change plans for the pipeline.
The current plan for the pipeline would have it cut through five homeowners’ properties in North Rivoli Farms, which is right along the county line between and Monroe and Bibb counties. It would clear a woodland buffer that adds character, provides privacy, noise and light protection, and helps prevent runoff and flooding.
“The woods support bats, owls, deer, wild turkeys, and other wildlife that contribute to the character and environmental health of our neighborhood,” the formal joint complaint reads. “This ecosystem will be fractured or destroyed, and we will lose something natural and beautiful that drew us to this area in the first place.”
Residents also expressed concerns about the environmental, health and safety risks associated with a high-pressure gas pipeline.
“The construction of a high-pressure gas pipeline introduces serious risks to groundwater contamination, soil disruption, and long-term water quality,” the complaint reads. “Heavy equipment, trenching, and potential leaks could degrade our local aquifer or affect existing well systems. These impacts are not only environmental, they represent real and direct risks to the daily needs and safety of our families, animals, and gardens.”
Beyond the risks and natural destruction that comes with the pipeline, the affected North Rivoli Farms residents took issue with the way Southern Natural Gas, a subsidiary of Kinder Morgan that is developing and operating the SSE4 project, has gone about the outreach process.
Their formal filing claimed there “appears to be a pattern of strategic delay and inadequate disclosure” by Southern Natural Gas and its contractors.
The residents said they did not receive detailed parcel maps until just five days before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission intervention deadline. Three had not received formal offer letters for easements, which gives the company the right to use land for the pipeline, by the time they filed their comment on Aug. 5. They also alleged the valuations in the offer letters that were sent were based on outdated or inaccurate assumptions.
“This pattern of deflection, delayed communication, and rushed document delivery undermines the integrity of the process and calls into question whether it meets the spirit of informed public participation as required by FERC procedures,” their comment reads.
But the timeline residents took issue with is standard for how the process goes, according to Allen Fore, vice president of public affairs for Kinder Morgan
“That is typically the way that we do it,” Fore said. “That’s not going to guarantee that everyone always gets everything and the information in the formal manner that they understand and that is comfortable to them. (We) understand too, that this is new to some people.”
Fore made clear that communication with landowners began nearly a year before filing an official application in June 2025 to build the pipeline. That communication start with survey permission letters, sent out to the property owners. The company also held public meetings and open houses in each county along the proposed route.
Will Macon residents’ pushback cause a change?
Since the comments from the North Rivoli Farms residents were submitted, Fore himself met with the residents in person and said Southern Natural Gas is actively exploring an alternate route to avoid some of their properties.
The meeting between the company and North Rivoli Farms residents came after the neighborhood’s homeowners association reached out directly to the company. Each affected landowner is assigned a point of contact during the survey phase, Fore said.
“We talked to them about it. We walked all of the different properties,” Fore said. “In some cases, you might not be able to (see things) from the (aerial view) … because it’s wooded. You can’t tell that underneath, they have little trails going through and creeks and things down there. As a result of that, we’re exploring an alternate route in that area.”
Georgia energy pipeline’s timeline and impact
Over the summer, developers filed their official application with regulators in June, and by mid-July, the FERC issued a formal notice announcing the project and inviting the public and other stakeholders to intervene.
In early September, the agency announced plans to prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement to assess how the pipeline could affect land, water, wildlife and nearby communities. The public comment period on the scope of that environmental review closed in early October, marking a key milestone in the approval process.
The land surveys for the project are almost complete, but only 4% of the easements have been acquired as of last week according to a Kinder Morgan presentation in front of the Special Committee on Resource Management last week at the Georgia House.
If regulators approve the project, construction could begin as soon as 2027, with the pipeline slated to come online in two phases — Phase 1 in late 2028 and Phase 2 in 2029.
Construction for the project will disturb approximately 6,865 acres of land, with about 1,465 acres remaining permanently cleared for the pipeline and related facilities.
The project is also expected to affect around 224 acres of wetlands during construction, with 49 acres affected permanently, and will cross more than 1,000 streams and rivers, including the Oconee River, according to Kinder Morgan’s documents.
The SSE4 Project is currently listed as crossing the Ogeechee River by open cut method in a reach of the river that has been designated as a critical habitat for Atlantic Sturgeon by the National Marine Fisheries Service, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.
The open cut method involves digging a trench directly through a river or stream bed to install a pipeline.
While this is a common construction technique, environmental groups say it can be particularly damaging in ecologically sensitive waterways.
Cutting into the riverbed can stir up large amounts of sediment, which can cloud the water, bury spawning areas and harm fish and other aquatic life. It can also destabilize stream banks, alter flow patterns and reduce water quality long after construction is complete.
This story was originally published October 16, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
CORRECTION: Information from Allen Fore was misattributed in a previous version of this story.
