Landowners Demand USN Answers

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

In advance of a key hearing a group of Eastern Tennessee landowners are asking a Nashville judge to order a local chemical company to answer 16 questions about the path of a 12 mile dual pipeline from Midway to the Nolichucky River.
In a motion filed recently in Davidson Chancery Court, the six landowners said the answers to their questions are essential to determine if, as they have charged, the pipeline illegally encroaches on their properties.
Citing US Nitrogen"s "wholesale refusal" to answer any of the questions, attorney Elizabeth Murphy noted that US Nitrogen's lawyers insisted the information sought by the group is irrelevant.
Meanwhile, other parties to the suit, the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Industrial Development Board of Greeneville and Greene County, have stated they can't answer the questions because US Nitrogen is the only party with the information.
"The discovery is directly relevant to petitioner's standing allegations," the motion states.
A hearing on the motion is scheduled for next Friday in the courtroom of Chancery Judge Ellen Hobbs Lyle.
The plaintiff's in the case include Don Bible and Jack Renner. Both contend that the pipeline is not located within a right of way but invades their properties. The suit contends that the TDOT pipeline permit granted to US Nitrogen is illegal on multiple grounds,including the fact that there was no right of way for TDOT to grant rights to.
The plaintiffs also charge that US Nitrogen knew it was intruding on private property but "installed the pipelines anyway in open disregard of private property rights."
The information sought by the landowners includes details of the way the so-called right of way was established including the work a registered land surveyor, Jeff Miller, did in behalf of US Nitrogen to justify the pipelines course.
The pipeline is used to pump millions of gallons of water from the Nolichucky for US Nitrogen's use in manufacturing ammonium nitrate. In fact there are two 12 mile pipelines, one to draw the water to the Midway plant and a 12 mile return pipe through which some but not nearly all of the water is pumped back into the Nolichucky.
The lawsuit has already gone to an appeals court after the original judge assigned to the case dismissed the claims concluding that the landowners did not have legal standing to even raise the questions. An appeals court rejected that conclusion and sent the case back the chancery court.
The chancery judge who issued the first ruling recused herself from the case and it was re-assigned to Hobbs Lyle.
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