A WKY agency is wielding eminent domain for a gas pipeline. Landowners say they’re being bullied.

Greg Davenport says he’s not opposed to progress. But he has serious misgivings when it comes to a proposed 16-inch natural gas pipeline that a public agency wants to run through his family’s Christian County farm, property his family has owned since the 1940s. 

“Basically, they said, ‘Sign this, or we’ll take you to court. Sign this, or we’ll condemn your property,’ Davenport said. “We just don’t think that this pipeline that’s going to serve other people — it’s not going to serve us at all. I don’t think it’s even going to serve our county — that we should have to bear the blunt.” 

Davenport’s family is involved in one of more than 20 active lawsuits in Western Kentucky courts in which the Todd County-based Pennyrile Regional Energy Agency has sued landowners, citing the state’s eminent domain laws, for easements as part of a proposed 53-mile gas pipeline project across Christian County, Todd County, Trigg County, Caldwell County, and Lyon County. 

The Pennyrile Regional Energy Agency, a public agency formed by two small Todd County cities and backed by a $30 million allocation by the GOP-controlled state legislature, has said it’s secured the vast majority of easements needed to build a pipeline, something it touts as an economic development boon for the region by boosting natural gas supply. 

The agency is also still ensnared in an ongoing lawsuit with the state’s utility regulator over whether the pipeline’s construction should be subject to oversight by the regulator. Rep. Jason Petrie, R-Elkton, a powerful state lawmaker from Todd County, earlier this year sought to help the agency in that lawsuit by passing an exemption from regulation in state law. 

But some landowners being sued by the agency along the planned pipeline route say the pipeline agency has refused to negotiate in good faith over easement funding or answered questions the pipeline’s path.

Attorneys for these landowners have also asked questions and scrutinized — through depositions and testimony in one of these court cases — the future economic viability of the pipeline, the status of future customers, and whether geological formations, including sinkholes, could change the pipeline’s path. 

In late September, social media pages and a website labeled as the “Kentucky Coalition for Property Rights” were also launched lambasting the Pennyrile Regional Energy Agency over these lawsuits. When the Lantern asked who specifically was behind the social media pages and websites, it received an email in September stating the coalition was a “citizen led group” and that people “are getting lawsuits with no real negotiation, and nobody has given a straight answer about who the pipeline is for.” 

Eston Glover, the chair of the board for the Pennyrile group, told the Lantern in late October that, based on advice from his attorneys, he could not “discuss anything relative to what’s going on in the court.” 

“There are a lot of inaccurate statements being passed around,” Glover said. “I don’t know how to correct those.” 

He declined to comment on what specifically has been inaccurate. 

Courtroom scrutiny 

The proposed gas pipeline has been years in the making, and extensive delays.

In 2022, Petrie, the powerful Todd County lawmaker who serves as chair of the Kentucky House Appropriations and Revenue Committee, and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear hailed a $30 million appropriation that currently serves as the sole funding source for the agency, created by the Todd County cities of Guthrie and Trenton, which have a combined population of fewer than 2,000. 

The pipeline was initially proposed to provide natural gas supply to an existing Novelis aluminum recycling facility for a potential expansion, along with other “unserved and underserved areas” in the region, according to a past court filing. 

In a 2023 presentation obtained by the Lantern, the agency expected to have the pipeline operational by the end of 2025. During the Christian County court hearing, Glover cited the main reason for the delays: “Dealing with the landowners.”

The agency began to sue landowners for easements to build the pipeline starting in 2023 and has continued to file lawsuits through this year. 

The agency has also touted an agreement to supply the Fort Campbell military installation with gas supply. During a Christian County court hearing in March in one of the eminent domain lawsuits, Glover, the agency board chair, said that a Buc-ee’s gas station also expressed interest in receiving gas supply. 

During the March hearing, Dan Thomas, an attorney for William Elgin, one of the sued landowners, asked Glover whether the agency had a commitment from Novelis to expand its operations in Todd County; he questioned if Novelis’ investment to build a separate plant in Alabama meant that the Todd County expansion wasn’t happening. 

Glover responded that there was not an existing document definitively stating Novelis was “going to build” or not. 

“We are still getting information weekly on what their expectations and needs will be,” Glover said during the March hearing. Glover also said the agency was waiting to hear from Fort Campbell. 

In an email, Novelis spokesperson Fiona Bell told the Lantern the company “continues to operate our recycling center and automotive finishing plant” in Todd County and had no plans to share “regarding an expansion.”

A history of eminent domain

As litigation has dragged on, county judges-executives along the pipeline route have fielded complaints from their own constituents about whether the pipeline agency was respecting landowners’ rights.

In a phone interview with the Lantern, Republican Trigg County Judge-Executive Stan Humphries referenced the “untethered eminent domain situation” when the federal government seized and flooded Trigg County land in the 1940s and 1960s to create Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley, eventually becoming the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. 

“There are still a lot of residents, when that word’s brought up, get really uptight about it, and rightfully so,” Humphries said, referring to eminent domain. “There’s a lot of concern, and maybe some confusion, as to what that corridor looks like and size and scope and location. So those are issues that have to be worked out for these landowners.”

Because of a new state law passed earlier this year, Humphries other county judge-executives representing counties along the pipeline route can make appointments to the pipeline agency’s board to represent their county’s interests.

Petrie, the Todd County state lawmaker, in a late October statement said the county appointments allowed through House Bill 757 were “intended primarily to increase transparency” with the agency. 

But Humphries and other elected officials question how meaningful these appointments are. 

These county representatives do not each get a vote on the board; these county representatives can only vote in a limited capacity — together as only a single vote on the board — if all county representatives agree to support or oppose a board action.

That means each county appointment, including Todd County, can essentially veto any effort by other county representatives on the board. Only Todd County has made such an appointment, and the board already is made up of Todd County residents. 

“If you’re going to run something through a county, that county should have a true voice,” said Rep. Myron Dossett, R-Pembroke, who represents a part of Christian County and is also concerned about ensuring landowners, some of them lifelong friends of his, are “treated fairly.” 

“It was a great idea, but it’s the implementation that has been horrible,” Dossett said. “I know how hard they have worked and struggled to own a piece of property, to own a home.” 

Petrie said that no “lobbyist or local official has contacted me since the original filing with general concerns about interlocal entities, or specific concerns about board appointments.” 

“I remain open to discussion about legislative action to make interlocal agreement entities better in structure and operation for all concerned,” Petrie said. 

In early September, Christian Circuit Judge Andrew Self sided with the pipeline agency in an eminent domain lawsuit against a landowner; lawyers for the landowner are seeking to vacate that order. Several of the eminent domain lawsuits remain pending and haven’t yet gone to trial. 

Humphries, the Trigg County judge-executive, said his county fiscal court still supports the idea behind the pipeline; the fiscal court passed a resolution in support of it last year. 

But he said the pipeline agency hasn’t made any additional presentations to the fiscal court since March 2025, and there are “a lot of unknowns” about the project’s status. Smith, the Lyon County judge-executive, also said she has had limited communication with the agency. 

“I think transparency, accountability, clear communication, and high respect for landowners’ rights in this process is really paramount in moving this project if it’s going to work out,” Humphries said.