Residents Continue to Fight Regulator Station

Though construction has been completed on the controversial regulator station, for members of the Clairmont Community Alliance the fight is far from over.  

Lori Muskat, President of the Clairmont Community Alliance, continues to fight to keep the station, which sits around 100 feet from her backyard, from becoming operational.

“We want it moved, we haven’t changed from that,” Muskat said.  “I don’t care that it’s built, there’s no way that they can make it safe.”

The regulator station was installed as a part of the Eastside Pipeline replacement project and AGL maintains that it is safe and necessary.

“We want the community to rest assured that a regulator station is a safe and standard piece of equipment that is used throughout the natural gas industry,” Kristie Benson, Public Relations Manager for AGL said. 

The Clairmont Community Alliance, which is a subcommittee of the Dresden East Civic Association, wants Atlanta Gas Light to move the station to an area that is less densely populated, less residential and closer to a main road.  The station currently sits within a few hundred feet of residents and can only be accessed by Shalimar Drive, a two lane residential road. 

In the event of an emergency, Muskat fears that residents will struggle to evacuate the area as emergency vehicles fill the street. 

Jordan Fox, President of the Dresden East Civic Association echoed Muskat’s concerns over resident safety.

“We feel that the gas regulator station could pose a significant safety risk to residents in and around the area,” Fox said. “While there’s a small chance, if something did happen it could be catastrophic.”

Earlier this year, AGL held several workshops on pipeline safety across the state, but members of the alliance feel that the current location cannot be made safe. 

“The gas regulator station is too close to residents,” Fox said.  “It shouldn’t be in a residential area at all.” 

Atlanta Gas Light obtained the property where the regulator station now sits from Heather Drake’s 81-year-old parents.  Drake says her parents were not interested in selling but agreed to do so after being pursued by AGL for several months. 

“My parents told them that they weren’t interested and they kept coming back to them and offering them more money,” Drake said.  “Eventually they were under the impression that they really had to sell.” 

Drake says her parents were told that the regulator station would be small and hardly noticeable. 

“They’re not happy about it and they feel that they were misled,” Drake said.  “It has such a bearing on so many people to have something like that nearby.” 

Residents of the nearby community weren’t aware that a regulator station was being built until after construction had already begun but Muska didn’t become concerned until she was told by AGL that safety regulations set by the Department of Homeland Security kept the specific addresses of regulator stations private. 

“I thought, they’re building something in my community that the Department of Homeland Security has concerns about, then we need to find out why,” Muskat said. 

At this point she began the research that led to the formation of the Clairmont Community Alliance.

“As soon as I started to deal with Atlanta Gas Light, I knew that we had to have a unified voice,” Muskat said. 

Muskat and Fox both reported difficulties in contacting officials at AGL to voice their concerns. 

Atlanta Gas Light held an open house for residents in February to discuss the regulator station but members of the alliance felt that it wasn’t the town hall meeting that they had asked for. 

“That open house was really more of a commercial for them,” Fox said.      

Though the alliance is still working to have the regulator station moved, they’re also focused on maintaining the safety of residents in the event that the station becomes operational.

“Our primary goal at this point is to get an emergency plan for the area,” Fox said. “There’s a lot of concern about the fact that this is being built and if something happens, it could really turn into a disaster.”

Fox said that officials with the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities in Georgia, have assured him that a plan exists but have refused to give him a copy of it.    

AGL’s handling of a gas leak that occurred back in March during the construction of the Eastside Pipeline left residents of Tanglewood Circle doubting the company’s disaster preparedness. It took four hours to contain a leak in a 4-inch pipe, which resident Blanche Collins says gives her concerns over the safety of the new 24-inch pipe.

“It gives us no confidence whatsoever that they would be able to contain a 24-inch pipe in any timely manner or in a safe manner,” Collins said. 

Benson maintains, in a statement sent to Patch, that AGL knows what it is doing.

“Throughout the 155 years that we have been in business, we have safely installed and maintained hundreds of thousands of pipeline, in addition to thousands of regulator stations,” Benson said.

But for the Clairmont Community Alliance, the location of the regulator station is cause for concern.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, all you have to do is have common sense to say this is a really stupid idea,” Muskat said.