Couple of points here. The reported trespassing event happened in the very early days of the project. It was a site survey crew checking if there were structures that needed to be avoided at a later date. They went through unlocked, unmarked gates and ended up in the wrong fenced place. Human error on their part, not a malicious action by the company. Biased news sources have rehashed the same story every few months making it look like an ongoing issue.
Those 'token payments' amount to very close to the value of the land in question, and in the cases of second or third generation ranchers the payment far exceeds what they paid for their entire ranch. The folks involved get to keep the land. How would you like it if someone paid you more for your home that you bought it for, dug a trench, backfilled, then planted native plants to restore the land. Then let you continue to own it and live there? The hooplah about the company screwing over landowners is bogus.
In no case at all is the company taking land along the route. They are buying easement access. The current owner retains ownership and possession.
If you check the scale of that map and state park boundaries you will see that what is being called "very close" is more than 45 miles away. It is even farther to Chinati, over 60 miles. The anti pipeline crowd is calling that close. It would be like prohibiting a pipeline west of Fort Worth because it is too close to Dallas city limits. Every foot of pipeline will be on private land save for where it crosses under highway easements.
The question of interstate versus intrastate was settled at the beginning of the project. The transfer station at the river is a separated entity from the pipeline, much as a bridge is to a road. The pipeline is under jurisdiction of the TRC. Again, antis keep raising this as an issue when it has already been settled.
For a good portion of its length this new line will parallel an existing one as well as an old rail line. The rails have been updated allowing the company to transport sections of pipe over them. Nearly every affected landowner has gleefully accepted money for nothing and signed on. A few holdouts are pushing court action but so far only a few filings have been made.
Now for the good news. Early on Mexico published their plan for where the gas will go. Two electrical plants will consume the majority of it. Today one is a coal burner. Since they have no clean air act in Mexico they buy our country's low grade coal that is too dirty to burn here. They have no scrubbers either like our coal plants do. The second plant currently burns fuel oil. Our country phased that fuel out in the sixties and seventies to clean up our air. According to a study these two plants account for 80% of visible particulate pollution in Big Bend National Park. While the entire amount will no go away at project completion most of it will. We will have significantly cleaner air and cleared skies when this is all completed.
Big Bend Conservation Alliance has no qualms about recirculating false information to keep anger and fear stoked amongst anti pipeline folks. One such story was how this would cause sever light pollution and impair the observatory at Fort Davis. The story was dropped after they were asked to explain how a buried steel pipe will cause light pollution. It still makes the rounds on social media.
This pipeline is bringing benefits to Big Bend, tapping a market for producers to sell natural gas, providing the city of Presidio with a way to place a natural gas utility service for their homes and businesses. Marfa already has that from the old pipeline, Alpine will have the option to add a utility service too.
Speaking of that old pipeline, where was the protesting sixty years ago when it was buried here?
More good than bad will come from this and if rich dudes make a profit along the way so what? Isn't that how they got rich in the first place? Through initiative and risk?
Anyone who rants about the evil big energy business is invited to stop directly supporting that business with your hard earned money. Stop buying gasoline, propane, natural gas and electricity. After all those purchases are funding this project.
Welcome to the Two Wheeled Texans community! 
Feel free to hang out and lurk as long as you like. However, we would like to encourage you to 
