KENTUCKY STATE UNIVERSITY SAYS THEY "DIDN'T GIVE PERMISSION FOR BLUEGRASS PIPELINE SURVEY"

​By Cara Cooper

In response to the letter sent on behalf of the Kentucky Student Environmental Coalition to the Kentucky State University regarding the survey markers on their research and demonstration farm, President Mary Sias states that permission was not given to the Williams Company to survey the property. 

Imagine my surprise when I checked my voice mail last week and had a message from the Kentucky State University president asking me to call her back and listing both her direct office line and her cell phone as the contact numbers. I immediately called back, both anxious and excited to hear what her response would be to our state coalition demanding that that they university re-think it's approval of having the Williams company survey their research farm. My surprise only grew as I listened to President Sias assure me that she is the only one who could have approved the survey on behalf of the university and that she had done no such thing! Either the company had surveyed the property with out permission (which would be illegal!) or the permission had come from higher up in the state with out the university's knowledge. 

By the end of the week, news reports of President Sias going on record as having not given permission for the survey were coming up against the Williams Company's reports that their survey was not done illegally, and permission had been obtained (although by who, they won't reveal).

The plot only thickens as news has been released that the Governor's son works for the law firm of the company building the pipeline and rumors circulate that a state park was also surveyed "without permission".

Could it be that the state is secretly giving permission for land surveys to be completed and making back room deals with the pipeline companies? It would be one explanation for why the governor has continued to deny the public's calls for the pipeline to be added to this month's special session agenda even though his office has received over 5,000 petition signatures and hundreds of calls on the matter. 

Stay tuned as this story unfolds!

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