Environmental groups challenge pipeline federal review in Middle Georgia
Environmental groups argued that federal regulators understated the risks a major pipeline expansion could pose to Macon and the rest of Middle Georgia while overstating the need for the project in technical comments filed last week.
The proposed 291-mile pipeline expansion, known as SSE4, by Southern Natural Gas (SNG), a company co-owned by Southern Company and Kinder Morgan, would run through Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.
The project plans to serve “the increasing market demand of residential, commercial, and industrial customers and new electric generation fueled by natural gas,” and 100% of its capacity is already contracted, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) draft environmental impact statement.
However, the Southern Environmental Law Center — on behalf of Georgia Interfaith Power and Light, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, Savannah Riverkeeper and other groups — said there are studies already filed with FERC that show the underlying load forecasts are “highly uncertain, geographically unstable, or materially overstated.”
The pipeline expansion is being proposed largely to supply gas for new power plants, and utilities including Georgia Power have used projected data center growth to justify forecasts, showing a sharp rise in electricity demand.
The draft review does not independently analyze whether the demand driving those contracts is real or speculative, according to the SELC’s comments.
“The speculative nature of projected data center growth in the Southeast is not a separate, unrelated policy point; it is record evidence that the Companies’ asserted need may be materially overstated, and FERC was required to confront that uncertainty before using the Companies’ demand narrative to define the purpose and need of the project and reject any potential reasonable alternatives,” the comments said.
Georgia Power assumed 93% of data centers that had merely inquired about power service would become actual grid customers, according to a Greenlink Analytics report from December. The utility’s own May 2025 large-load queue came in at less than half what it had projected just two years earlier.
In addition to challenging the pipeline’s need, the SELC’s comments regarding Middle Georgia focus on concerns tied to the Ocmulgee River corridor, a planned compressor station in Macon and health impacts to vulnerable communities.
The Ocmulgee River and wildlife
The pipeline is planned to cross the Ocmulgee River using underground drilling, called horizontal directional drilling, which avoids digging directly through the riverbed. But in several smaller tributaries, including Little Deer Creek, Feagin Hill Creek and Sand Creek, the project would still use open-cut trenching — meaning crews would dig directly across the stream channel.
Open-cut trenching can loosen soil and sediment, which can then wash downstream and affect water quality across the broader river system, according to the SELC’s comments.
“Though sediment is a natural part of the environment, excess sediment from development activities impact both aquatic habitat quality and the species that call the river, stream, or wetland home,” said Kelsey Cruickshank with American Rivers. “Increased sediments in a small stream can easily move into a larger river like the Ocmulgee and degrade water quality. Waterways degraded from sedimentation may have depleted oxygen levels, increased algal growth, carry heavy metals or pesticides, and make fish more susceptible to disease.”
The federal review approved the plan to trench across more than 1,300 streams and wetlands, many of them in the same river systems, without looking at each crossing in isolation or asking whether less damaging construction methods should be used at each crossing, according to the SELC’s comments.
“When each crossing is considered individually, it’s easy for developers to claim that the project causes minimal adverse effects on the environment, but it defies logic that multiplying minimal effects by a thousand or more will result in a whole, complete project that still has minimal effects on the environment,” Cruickshank said.
The draft review also did not fully analyze risks to protected aquatic species, including freshwater mussels and shortnose and Atlantic sturgeon, or account for the effects of a planned 5 million-gallon construction water withdrawal from the Oconee River, according to the SELC’s filing.
However, the federal review claims the effect on waterways and wildlife will be temporary and minimal.
“Overall, wildlife and aquatic effects of … SSE4 would be temporary, minor, and minimize effectively through the application of avoidance, mitigation, and restoration matters,” the draft environmental impact statement reads. “We therefore conclude that no significant adverse effects on regional wildlife populations or habitat functions would be anticipated.”
Compressor station in Macon and effects on air quality
There is a compressor station planned for Macon, called the Ocmulgee Compressor Station, which acts like a pump for natural gas pipelines.
Of the 14 compressor stations planned across Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, the Ocmulgee Compressor Station is the only one where SNG proposed using an electric motor instead of a gas turbine, which “would minimize” nitrogen oxide, volatile organic compounds and fine particulate matter emissions, SNG noted in its application.
FERC acknowledged that compressor stations would release greenhouse gases by burning fuel and that some public comments raised concerns about local air pollution, but ultimately concluded that the project’s effects on air quality would be minor.
The review also notes that Bibb County is classified as a federal maintenance area for ozone and fine particulate pollution, but says construction emissions would stay below the level that triggers additional federal review.
Environmental justice
There are seven Georgia counties directly along SSE4’s route that rank among the state’s most vulnerable communities by multiple federal measures, including the CDC’s Environmental Justice Index. Crawford and Spalding counties, both neighbors of Macon-Bibb, are on that list.
FERC acknowledged that the pipeline would pass through low-income and minority communities, but said its effects would not be disproportionately harmful if mitigation measures are followed.
The SELC’s comments disagree. The review never analyzed how compressor station emissions would specifically affect health in these communities, even though studies have linked living near compressor stations to higher rates of cancer, respiratory illness and heart disease in low-income and majority-Black areas.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released a draft environmental impact statement in late January on the pipeline, concluding the project’s effects on air, water and wildlife would be “minor.” The public had less than eight weeks to submit comments on the draft environmental impact statement.
The SELC is asking FERC to extend the public comment period, redo its environmental review and analyze alternatives it did not consider, including building less pipeline, building in stages, or meeting demand through non-gas sources.
The groups also want FERC to require less damaging construction methods at stream and wetland crossings, mandate electric motors at all compressor stations rather than just the one in Macon and conduct an environmental justice analysis that measures health impacts on communities along the pipeline route.
“Because the deficiencies here are substantial — not minor or technical — the public must be afforded a genuine opportunity to comment on the corrected analysis,” the SELC’s filing states.
