13362 Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 49 / Friday, March 13, 2015 / Notices 

1The appendices referenced in this notice are not 

being printed in the Federal Register. Copies of 

appendices were sent to all those receiving this 

notice in the mail and are available at www.ferc.gov 

using the link called ‘‘eLibrary’’ or from the 

Commission’s Public Reference Room, 888 First 

Street NE., Washington, DC 20426, or call (202) 

502–8371. For instructions on connecting to 

eLibrary, refer to the last page of this notice. 

2The appendices referenced in this notice will 

not appear in the Federal Register. Copies of the 

appendices were sent to all those receiving this 

notice in the mail and are available at www.ferc.gov 

using the link called ‘‘eLibrary’’ or from the 

Commission’s Public Reference Room, 888 First 

Street NE., Washington, DC 20426, or call (202) 

502–8371. For instructions on connecting to 

eLibrary, refer to the Additional Information section 

on page 7 of this notice. 

affect the quality of the human 

environment. 

A copy of the EA is available for 

review at the Commission in the Public 

Reference Room or may be viewed on 

the Commission’s Web site at http://

www.ferc.gov using the ‘‘eLibrary’’ link. 

Enter the docket number excluding the 

last three digits in the docket number 

field to access the document. For 

assistance, contact FERC Online 

Support at FERCOnlineSupport@

ferc.gov or toll-free at 1–866–208–3676, 

or for TTY, (202) 502–8659. 

You may also register online at 

http://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/

esubscription.asp to be notified via 

email of new filings and issuances 

related to this or other pending projects. 

For assistance, contact FERC Online 

Support. 

For further information, contact Jim 

Fargo at (202) 502–6095. 

Dated: March 4, 2015. 

Kimberly D. Bose, 

Secretary. 

[FR Doc. 2015–05688 Filed 3–12–15; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6717–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Federal Energy Regulatory 

Commission 

[Docket No. PF15–4–000] 

Gulf South Pipeline Company, LP; 

Notice of Intent To Prepare an 

Environmental Assessment for the 

Planned Coastal Bend Header Project 

and Request for Comments on 

Environmental Issues 

The staff of the Federal Energy 

Regulatory Commission (FERC or 

Commission) will prepare an 

environmental assessment (EA) that will 

discuss the environmental impacts of 

the Coastal Bend Header Project 

(Project) involving construction and 

operation of facilities by Gulf South 

Pipeline Company, LP (Gulf South) in 

southeastern Texas. The Commission 

will use this EA in its decision-making 

process to determine whether 

construction and operation of the 

Project is in the public convenience and 

necessity. 

This notice announces the opening of 

the scoping process the Commission 

will use to gather input from the public 

and interested agencies on the Project. 

Your input during the scoping process 

will help the Commission staff 

determine what issues need to be 

evaluated in the EA. The Commission 

staff will also use the scoping process to 

help determine whether preparation of 

an environmental impact statement is 

more appropriate for this Project based 

upon the potential significance of the 

anticipated levels of impact. Please note 

that the scoping period will close on 

April 3, 2015. This is not your only 

public input opportunity; please refer to 

the Environmental Review Process flow 

chart in Appendix 1.1

Further details on how to submit 

written comments are in the Public 

Participation section of this notice. If 

you sent comments on this project to the 

Commission before the opening of this 

docket on November 5, 2014, you will 

need to file those comments in Docket 

No. PF15–4–000 to ensure they are 

considered as part of this proceeding. 

This notice is being sent to the 

Commission’s current environmental 

mailing list for this Project. State and 

local government officials are asked to 

notify their constituents of this planned 

Project and encourage them to comment 

on their areas of concern. 

If you are a landowner receiving this 

notice, a company representative may 

contact you about the acquisition of an 

easement to construct, operate, and 

maintain the planned facilities. The 

company would seek to negotiate a 

mutually acceptable agreement. 

However, if the Commission approves 

the Project, that approval conveys with 

it the right of eminent domain. 

Therefore, if easement negotiations fail 

to produce an agreement, Gulf South 

could initiate condemnation 

proceedings where compensation would 

be determined in accordance with state 

law. 

A fact sheet prepared by the FERC 

entitled ‘‘An Interstate Natural Gas 

Facility on My Land? What Do I Need 

to Know?’’ is available for viewing on 

the FERC Web site (www.ferc.gov). This 

fact sheet addresses a number of 

typically asked questions, including the 

use of eminent domain and how to 

participate in the Commission’s 

proceedings. 

Summary of the Planned Project 

Gulf South plans to construct a new 

gas pipeline in Wharton and Brazoria 

Counties, Texas, a new compressor 

station in Wharton County along the 

new pipeline, and two new compressor 

stations and upgrades at two compressor 

stations along Gulf South’s existing 

Index 129 pipeline in Fort Bend, Harris, 

Polk, and Sabine Counties, Texas. The 

new pipeline would enable delivery of 

1.54 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) of 

natural gas to the proposed Freeport 

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Export 

Terminal near Freeport, Texas. The 

general locations of the planned 

pipeline facilities are depicted in the 

figures included in Appendix 2.2

Specifically, the Project would 

include construction and operation of 

the following facilities: 

• 64 miles of 36-inch diameter 

pipeline, called the Coastal Bend 

Header, commencing at a new 

interconnect with Tennessee Gas 

Pipeline Company, LLC northwest of 

Hungerford in Wharton County, Texas 

and terminating at the existing Freeport 

LNG Stratton Ridge meter site near 

Clute in Brazoria County, Texas; 

• one new 93,500-horsepower (hp) 

gas-fired compressor station, called the 

Wilson Compressor Station, in Wharton 

County, Texas; 

• one new 26,000-hp electric motor 

driven compressor station, called the 

Brazos Compressor Station, in Fort Bend 

County, Texas; 

• one new 10,000-hp electric motor 

driven compressor station, called the 

North Houston Compressor Station, at 

an existing Gulf South property in 

Harris County, Texas; 

• piping modifications within the 

fence line at Gulf South’s existing 

Goodrich Compressor Station along the 

Index 129 pipeline in Polk County, 

Texas; 

• piping modifications and a new 

15,900-hp gas-fired compressor unit 

within the fence line at Gulf South’s 

former Magasco Compressor Station 

along the Index 129 pipeline in Sabine 

County, Texas; and 

• seven interconnects with various 

interstate and intrastate gas pipelines, 

including an interconnect with Gulf 

South’s Index 129 pipeline, which Gulf 

South plans to construct at a later time 

under its blanket certificate authority. 

Gulf South plans to begin Project 

construction in spring 2017 if all 

required permits, certificates, and 

authorizations are obtained. Gulf 

South’s planned in-service date for 

Project facilities is spring 2018. 

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Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 49 / Friday, March 13, 2015 / Notices 13363 

3 ‘‘Us,’’ ‘‘we,’’ and ‘‘our’’ refer to the 

environmental staff of the Commission’s Office of 

Energy Projects. 

4The Council on Environmental Quality 

regulations addressing cooperating agency 

responsibilities are at Title 40, Code of Federal 

Regulations, § 1501.6. 

5The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation 

regulations are at Title 36, Code of Federal 

Regulations, Part 800. Those regulations define 

historic properties as any prehistoric or historic 

district, site, building, structure, or object included 

in or eligible for inclusion in the National Register 

for Historic Places. 

Land Requirements for Construction 

Gulf South is still in the planning 

phase for the project, and workspace 

requirements have not been finalized. 

However, based on currently available 

plans, approximately 42 percent of the 

Coastal Bend Header pipeline route 

parallels existing pipeline, utility, or 

road rights-of-way. Pipeline 

construction would directly affect 

approximately 991 acres of land 

temporarily during construction, and 

480 acres would be retained as 

permanent right-of-way. Construction of 

the new Wilson and Brazos Compressor 

Stations would impact a total of 

approximately 57 acres temporarily and 

20 acres permanently. Construction of 

the new North Houston Compressor 

Station would impact approximately 12 

acres temporarily and 6 acres 

permanently, all within Gulf South’s 

existing property line at that site. The 

upgrades to the existing Goodrich 

Compressor Station and the former 

Magasco Compressor Station would 

impact a total of approximately 15 acres 

temporarily and 9 acres permanently, all 

within the existing fence lines of those 

facilities. Metering, regulating, mainline 

valve, and other ancillary facilities 

would affect a total of approximately 16 

acres during construction and 13 acres 

permanently. 

The EA Process 

The National Environmental Policy 

Act (NEPA) requires the Commission to 

take into account the environmental 

impacts that could result from an action 

whenever it considers the issuance of a 

Certificate of Public Convenience and 

Necessity. NEPA also requires us 3 to 

discover and address concerns the 

public may have about proposals. This 

process is referred to as scoping. The 

main goal of the scoping process is to 

focus the analysis in the EA on the 

important environmental issues. By this 

notice, the Commission requests public 

comments on the scope of the issues to 

address in the EA. All comments 

received will be considered during the 

preparation of the EA. 

In the EA we will discuss impacts that 

could occur as a result of the 

construction and operation of the 

planned Project under these general 

headings: 

• Geology and soils; 

• water resources; 

• wetlands and vegetation; 

• fish and wildlife including 

migratory birds; 

• threatened and endangered species; 

• land use, recreation, and visual 

resources; 

• air quality and noise; 

• cultural resources; 

• socioeconomics; 

• reliability and safety; and 

• cumulative environmental impacts. 

We will also evaluate reasonable 

alternatives to the planned Project or 

portions of the Project, including the no 

action alternative, and make 

recommendations on how to minimize 

or avoid impacts on affected resources. 

Although no formal application has 

been filed, we have already initiated our 

NEPA review under the Commission’s 

Pre-filing Process. The purpose of the 

Pre-filing Process is to encourage early 

involvement of interested stakeholders 

and to identify and resolve issues before 

an application is filed with the FERC. 

As part of our pre-filing review, we have 

begun to contact some federal and state 

agencies to discuss their involvement in 

the scoping process and the preparation 

of the EA. In addition, representatives 

from FERC participated in the public 

open houses sponsored by Gulf South in 

the Project area in January and February 

2015 to explain the environmental 

review process to interested 

stakeholders. 

Our independent analysis of the 

issues will be presented in the EA. If the 

Commission staff determines the 

preparation of an EA is appropriate, the 

EA will be placed in the public record 

and be published and distributed to the 

public. A comment period will be 

allotted when the EA is noticed. We will 

consider all comments on the EA before 

we make our recommendations to the 

Commission. To ensure your comments 

are considered, please carefully follow 

the instructions in the Public 

Participation section beginning on page 

6 of this notice. 

With this notice, we are asking 

agencies with jurisdiction by law and/ 

or special expertise with respect to the 

environmental issues related to this 

Project to formally cooperate with us in 

the preparation of the environmental 

document.4 Agencies that would like to 

request cooperating agency status 

should follow the instructions for filing 

comments provided under the Public 

Participation section of this notice. 

Consultations Under Section 106 of the 

National Historic Preservation Act 

In accordance with the Advisory 

Council on Historic Preservation’s 

regulations for Section 106 of the 

National Historic Preservation Act, we 

are using this notice to initiate 

consultation with the Texas Historical 

Commission which has been given the 

role of the State Historic Preservation 

Officer (SHPO) for Texas, and to solicit 

the SHPO’s view and those of other 

government agencies, interested Indian 

tribes, and the public on the Project’s 

potential effects on historic properties.5

We will define the Project-specific Area 

of Potential Effects in consultation with 

the SHPO as the Project is further 

developed. Our environmental 

document for the Project will document 

our findings of the impacts on historic 

properties and summarize the status of 

consultations under Section 106. 

Currently Identified Environmental 

Issues 

We have already identified several 

issues that we think deserve attention 

based on a preliminary review of the 

Project facilities and information 

provided by Gulf South, comments 

made to us at Gulf South’s open houses, 

and preliminary consultations with 

other agencies. It is worth noting that 

Gulf South has already made several 

modifications to the pipeline route and 

other Project facilities filed on 

December 12, 2014, based on feedback 

from affected landowners and other 

stakeholders at the open house meetings 

and through other ongoing landowner 

and agency negotiations. The following 

preliminary list of issues may be 

changed based on your comments and 

our analysis: 

• Gulf South has identified 92 

waterbodies during preliminary field 

surveys that would be crossed within 

the proposed Project area. Five are 

characterized as major waterbodies with 

crossing widths of greater than 100 feet: 

Brazos River, Dry Bayou, an unnamed 

manmade pond, Bastrop Bayou, and Big 

Slough. Thirty-three of the waterbodies 

are characterized as intermediate, with 

a crossing width of greater than 10 feet 

but less than or equal to 100 feet, and 

54 of the waterbodies are characterized 

as minor, with a crossing width of less 

than or equal to 10 feet. 

• Gulf South has identified 40 

wetlands during preliminary field 

surveys that would be crossed within 

the Project area. These include 22 

palustrine emergent wetlands, 4 

palustrine scrub shrub wetlands, and 14 

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13364 Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 49 / Friday, March 13, 2015 / Notices 

palustrine forested wetlands, totaling 

approximately 24 acres. 

• Temporary and permanent impacts 

on land use including farming, 

ranching, oil and gas production, sulfur 

extraction, and residential areas, and the 

development of appropriate mitigation 

and restoration measures. Gulf South 

has currently identified only one 

residence (house) and nine other 

structures (barns, storage buildings, etc.) 

within 50 feet of the construction rightof-way. 

• Potential impacts on fish and 

wildlife habitat, including potential 

impacts on federally- and state-listed 

threatened and endangered species. 

• Potential visual effects of the 

aboveground facilities on surrounding 

areas. 

• Potential impacts on air quality and 

noise associated with construction and 

operation of the pipeline and 

compression facilities. 

• Public safety and hazards 

associated with the transport of natural 

gas. 

• Potential cumulative impacts 

associated with the recently authorized 

Freeport LNG Terminal and any other 

planned or proposed major projects in 

the vicinity. 

Public Participation 

You can make a difference by 

providing us with your specific 

comments or concerns about the Project. 

Your comments should focus on the 

potential environmental effects, 

reasonable alternatives, and measures to 

avoid or minimize environmental 

impacts. The more specific your 

comments, the more useful they will be. 

To ensure that your comments are 

timely and properly recorded, please 

send your comments so the Commission 

receives them in Washington, DC on or 

before April 3, 2015. 

For your convenience, there are three 

methods you can use to submit your 

comments to the Commission. In all 

instances, please reference the Project 

docket number (PF15–4–000) with your 

submission. The Commission 

encourages electronic filing of 

comments and has expert staff available 

to assist you at (202) 502–8258 or 

efiling@ferc.gov. 

1. You can file your comments 

electronically using the eComment 

feature located on the Commission’s 

Web site (www.ferc.gov) under the link 

to Documents and Filings. This is an 

easy method for interested persons to 

submit brief, text-only comments on a 

project; 

2. You can file your comments 

electronically using the eFiling feature 

located on the Commission’s Web site 

(www.ferc.gov) under the link to 

Documents and Filings. With eFiling, 

you can provide comments in a variety 

of formats by attaching them as a file 

with your submission. New eFiling 

users must first create an account by 

clicking on ‘‘eRegister.’’ You must select 

the type of filing you are making. If you 

are filing a comment on a particular 

project, please select ‘‘Comment on a 

Filing’’; or 

3. You can file a paper copy of your 

comments by mailing them to the 

following address: Kimberly D. Bose, 

Secretary, Federal Energy Regulatory 

Commission, 888 First Street NE., Room 

1A, Washington, DC 20426. 

Environmental Mailing List 

The environmental mailing list 

includes federal, state, and local 

government representatives and 

agencies; elected officials; 

environmental and public interest 

groups; Native American Tribes; other 

interested parties; and local libraries 

and newspapers. This list also includes 

all affected landowners (as defined in 

the Commission’s regulations) who are 

potential right-of-way grantors, whose 

property may be used temporarily for 

Project purposes, or who own homes 

within certain distances of aboveground 

facilities, and anyone who submits 

comments on the Project. We will 

update the environmental mailing list as 

the analysis proceeds to ensure that we 

send the information related to this 

environmental review to all individuals, 

organizations, and government entities 

interested in and/or potentially affected 

by the planned Project. 

When an EA is published for 

distribution, copies will be sent to the 

environmental mailing list for public 

review and comment. If you would 

prefer to receive a paper copy of the 

document instead of the CD version, or 

would like to remove your name from 

the mailing list, please return the 

attached Information Request 

(Appendix 3). 

Becoming an Intervenor 

Once Gulf South files its application 

with the Commission, you may want to 

become an ‘‘intervenor,’’ which is an 

official party to the Commission’s 

proceeding. Intervenors play a more 

formal role in the process and are able 

to file briefs, appear at hearings, and be 

heard by the courts if they choose to 

appeal the Commission’s final ruling. 

An intervenor formally participates in 

the proceeding by filing a request to 

intervene. Instructions for becoming an 

intervenor are in the User’s Guide under 

the ‘‘e-filing’’ link on the Commission’s 

Web site. Please note that the 

Commission will not accept requests for 

intervenor status at this time. You must 

wait until a formal application for the 

Project is filed with the Commission. 

Additional Information 

Additional information about the 

Project is available from the 

Commission’s Office of External Affairs, 

at (866) 208–FERC, or on the FERC Web 

site (www.ferc.gov) using the eLibrary 

link. Click on the eLibrary link, click on 

‘‘General Search’’ and enter the docket 

number, excluding the last three digits 

in the Docket Number field (i.e., PF15– 

4). Be sure you have selected an 

appropriate date range. For assistance, 

please contact FERC Online Support at 

FercOnlineSupport@ferc.gov or toll free 

at (866) 208–3676, or for TTY, contact 

(202) 502–8659. The eLibrary link also 

provides access to the texts of formal 

documents issued by the Commission, 

such as orders, notices, and 

rulemakings. 

In addition, the Commission offers a 

free service called eSubscription which 

allows you to keep track of all formal 

issuances and submittals in specific 

dockets. This can reduce the amount of 

time you spend researching proceedings 

by automatically providing you with 

notification of filings, document 

summaries, and direct links to the 

documents. Go to www.ferc.gov/

esubscribenow.htm. 

Public meetings or site visits will be 

posted on the Commission’s calendar 

located at www.ferc.gov/EventCalendar/ 

EventsList.aspx along with other related 

information. 

Finally, Gulf South has established a 

Web site for the Project at http://www.

gulfsouthpl.com/ExpansionProjects.

aspx?id=4294967425. The Web site 

includes a description of the Project, 

permitting schedules and calendars, 

frequently asked questions and 

responses, and links to related press 

releases and news articles. You can also 

request additional information directly 

from Gulf South at (844) 211–6282 or by 

clicking on the following link on the 

Gulf South Web site that will take you 

to an online submittal form: http://www.

gulfsouthpl.com/ExpansionProjects.

aspx?ekfrm=4294967452. 

Dated: March 4, 2015. 

Kimberly D. Bose, 

Secretary. 

[FR Doc. 2015–05692 Filed 3–12–15; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6717–01–P 

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