Scott
No more lies, please
“I am not a tree hugger. I mean, I get that trees die. But when you’ve got these beautiful 150-year-old oak trees, some of them standing 150 feet tall, it’s breathtaking. And those are going to be removed for somebody else’s benefit?”
In 2021, Scott and his wife, Kristin, started building their forever home on a beautiful piece of land in Pleasant Shade, Tennessee. The joy of that experience has been mixed with incredible frustration at the unexpected prospect of a new methane gas pipeline cutting through their cherished homestead.
The Tennessee Valley Authority has contracted with Canadian company Enbridge Inc. to build the proposed 122-mile Ridgeline Expansion Project pipeline through eight counties in Middle and Eastern Tennessee. The pipeline would cross waterways over 400 times while removing countless old-growth trees and the wildlife habitats they support.
Scott and his family are vehemently opposed to the pipeline and have conveyed this to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
“My first concern is our creek that ultimately flows into Cordell Hull Lake,” he says. “My next concern is the environmental impact of all the hundreds of years-old trees they will take — trees for which they are offering mere pennies on the dollar. There is this one oak tree, for example, that is absolutely spectacular. I don’t know exactly how old the tree is, but you can tell by the girth it is extremely old.”
Scott and Kristin’s dog, Sadie Jo, plays in a creek that the couple walks with their dogs every day. The proposed route of the pipeline would cut through the creek.
After growing up in multiple cities and towns following his father’s work, Scott went on to work in the tech industry and eventually settled down in Tennessee almost 27 years ago. He and his wife feel the land in Pleasant Shade is a blank canvas for them, and they have numerous projects in the works, including building a deck and outdoor kitchen, enlarging a pond, and maintaining trails for hiking and exploring their surroundings.
“Every single day, twice a day, my wife and the dogs and I take a walk all around the property and specifically along the creek, which runs along the west side of the property. The proposed pipeline would cut right through the middle of all of it,” Scott shares. “My concern is the impact on the beauty of that as well as the environmental impact.”
Some people might choose to move given such a threat. But Scott says, “There will come a day when they will spread my ashes on this property. At least that is my wife’s and my intention for ourselves. We’re not moving.”
Scott recounts that Enbridge representatives have come to the house unannounced arguing that the pipeline will be “good for mankind.” Scott is clear in his view that Enbridge does not seem interested in what is best for the local community.
He has raised concerns to Enbridge and FERC about safety risks, too.
Indeed, the Ridgeline Pipeline would run alongside another Enbridge gas pipeline that exploded in 1949 and again in 2018 in Smith County, close to where Scott and Kristin live. And in 2019, an Enbridge pipeline in nearby Central Kentucky exploded, killing one person, injuring six, and destroying five homes.
"The list goes on and on,” Scott says. “And I shared these concerns with FERC. And every time I bring up these concerns, I’m told they will ‘look into it,’ and then nothing ever comes of it.”
When Enbridge representatives showed up with high-pressure contracts, the couple insisted that they wanted their specific questions about pipeline safety, environmental impacts and remediation work answered.
Scott says in his experience the company representatives have been “very condescending, bullish and insulting…We hear a different story from every person we talk to, but they don’t offer any answers.”
Meanwhile, Scott hears people in his community expressing the same concerns. He gets the impression no one is representing his family and his neighbors who feel the same way.
“I have reached out to multiple attorneys as well as mayors and other local representatives, and I have not gotten a single returned phone call — even after multiple attempts,” he says.
A path through the forest on the Scott and Kristin’s land.
“So when does this stop?” Scott asks. “When do we seriously look at alternative options, where we’re not harming the environment, negatively affecting people’s lives and diminishing property value?”
Scott says he understands why pipelines like this were built 70 years ago. “But this is now,” he says. “Explosions, leaks, threats to wildlife, to water and to hundreds of years old trees… we are smarter than this. This project is not for the greater good.”
By Holley Evergreen Roberts, based on a 2024 interview with Scott
Spring 2025 update: Scott and Kristin ultimately signed an easement agreement with Enbridge in February of 2025, noting that “we really had no choice in the matter.”