This is something that I feel very strongly about, and that is the siezure of land by one private entity from another. Unlike critical infastrucutre such as roads or parks, that are paid for and used by the public piplines are built by private entities. They are not a public resource or infastrucutre, they are a private investment and with the exception on taxes paid from profits the public sees no other benifit. It is amazing that one private entity can build something to profit from, and then ask landowners to help foot the bill of maintence. This is futher complicated by the argument that more gas will lower prices which is unfortunatly not true. It is well documented that there is already a surplus causing rock bottom pricing, and it is doubtful that futher supply would continue to drop pricing.
So this means for the engineer working on the pipeline they are implicit in siezing someone else land, building underneath it and then asking the landowners to maintain the surface above it. It is equivilant to asking suburbanites to maintain grass free strips on thier front lawn so the utilites can more quickly access thier pipes. What we need to do sooner is develop a decentralized grid, not reliant on fossil fuels so that the need for large trips of land to move energy around the country is reduced, but as long as the little guys and gals have less power and not government granted monopolies people will continue to suffer.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/natural-gas-prices-drop-on-greater-than-expected-surplus-1405004266
http://www.pnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-17167.pdf
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