By Lance Gaither

lance.gaither@bluegrassnewsmedia.com

On Monday Nov. 20, a ground-breaking ceremony was held for the construction of a new pipeline to Crab Orchard by Delta Natural Gas. The line will have further expansion into Rockcastle County. The project should be completed by late next year or early 2025, officials said.

“It always adds value when infrastructure is brought to the county and it improves the life of citizens,” said Lincoln County Judge-Executive Woods Adams.

It has been a collaborative effort between government of all levels and Delta Natural Gas spanning multiple decades.

“We are excited for the economic opportunities this line brings to the area,” said Delta Natural Gas President John Brown. “For 30 years now they have been trying to get natural gas in this area for the factories to come to the area and be competitive. It is a partnership of local, state, and national government to make this happen over several years. It will be great for residents and small businesses in the area to have energy choices that they didn’t before.”

During the ceremony, Kentucky House  of Representatives Speaker Pro Tempore and 80th District Representative David Meade emphasized the importance of multi-county efforts.

“It is a regional approach,” Meade said. “These kingdoms of imaginary lines, the county lines, don’t work anymore. It is almost impossible to get things done alone. We came together and said lets take a regional approach on this. By doing that we opened a lot of doors. In the future there will be a lot of big things happening and jobs coming to this area. It will impact about 17 counties when all is said and done. All because everybody decided to put aside their own counties and work together. There are some things in the pipeline that will be unbelievable.”    

Large amounts of bed rock along the pipeline’s path will make construction take longer than initially thought. Delta Natural Gas hopes to soon have a more accurate estimate based on speed of the initial construction.