Letter to the Editor Landowner Forced into Eminent Domain by Constitution Pipeline

To the Editor

I am a landowner in Davenport, NY, who is about to have my property and life ripped apart by the Constitution Pipeline.  I am a typical working class American, who is fortunate to own my land.  I see myself as a steward and believe the care I’ve given to my land has provided environmental benefits for everyone living in what I grew up to believe was a democracy.  Now my land is being taken by eminent domain so the gas can be shipped to a foreign country and sold at a higher price.

If the pipeline trench is dug and the land blasted, that democratic ideal would also be ripped away from me by an opaque and devious energy company that has no respect for the basis of American democracy: Private Property.  I find it especially disturbing that my own government, through the federal agency FERC, could take my land just so a corporation could profit from it. Eminent domain used this way is not only undemocratic; it is government-sanctioned corporate theft.

Here in Davenport I fear that the peaceful rural environment and the pristine headwaters of the region are about to be permanently industrialized by giant energy corporations, all for the purpose of increasing the wealth of just a handful of people. Those people have been able to wield great power over landowners like me; simply we landowners are of lesser wealth and are poorly represented.

Because the UN-Constitution Pipeline Company needs NY DEC permits to construct this pipeline, the only way the project could now be stopped is through the DEC.  I hope the DEC, the Attorney General, and Governor Cuomo do the right thing and refuse to issue these permits. 

Sincerely,

Robert Lidsky…  a Landowner forced into Eminent Domain by Constitution Pipeline.