BAILEYVILLE – Downeast LNG of Robbinston is packing its bag and taking its act on the road.

Company officials attended the Monday night meeting of the Town Council armed with maps and charts.

Spokesman Rob Wyatt said the company was now at that point in its federal permitting process that it wanted to meet with communities. “So our schedule for the next six months is to get out and speak with as many property owners, towns, etc. [as possible],” he said.

The company wants to build a multimillion dollar liquefied natural gas terminal and tank farm in Robbinston. Plans call for the underground pipe to follow a circuitous route from Robbinston through Calais to Baileyville.

Now that they have had an opportunity to review the proposed pipeline, councilors expressed concern Monday night that the route came dangerously close to the town’s water supply.

Spokesman Rob Wyatt explained that the company’s approach to the design of the route was to use land where there was an existing transmission line corridor or roads.

“We looked at a number of [choices] and the preferred one is what we call option number four and that utilizes a lot of disturbed area,” he said. “The areas that we looked at most is the [Eastern Maine Electric Co-op in Calais] transmission line corridor, the Maritimes and Northeast Pipeline [corridor]. There are spots on properties where there is no transmission corridor or pipeline, in that case we did try to use existing trails or roads.”

Wyatt said construction of the pipeline would not begin for another two years.

“Thankfully, this area is not new to pipelines, we have the Northeast pipeline out there,” he said. Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline, which ships natural gas from Nova Scotia through Maine to Massachusetts, is hoping to increase its capacity to accommodate LNG being shipped from Saint John, New Brunswick to Boston.

Looking at the map Wyatt held up, Councilor Dottie Johnson said she still was concerned. “I know a lot of people say it’s no big deal,” she said. “But if there’s another way I’d like you to investigate it.” She wondered what would happen if there were an earthquake.

Wyatt said everything would be taken into consideration including changing the route. “There are numerous pipeline safety features, shut-off valves, etc. if you have an earthquake or for some reason breaks in the pipe,” he said.

Asked if there were a break, what effect it would have on the town’s water, Wyatt said there would be no impact because LNG is not like oil, it doesn’t sink into the ground.

Wyatt said his company would be working with the town to develop an emergency response in the event of an incident. “That’s where I’d like to sit down with you and characterize the types of things that might occur, but also what does it mean to the wellhead protection area? You always do pre-blast surveys when you’re doing construction so you don’t affect wells. So there are a lot of preventative measures you can do,” he said.

During the discussion, an alternative route was suggested that would take the pipeline more inland and away from the town’s water system.

“We will look at it,” Wyatt said. “My pipeline engineers would be saying ‘yeah’ a straight line that would be nice for a change. You have to understand that our mind-set was to look for disturbed land. And if that is virgin land, there isn’t a road there, we didn’t look at it.”

Once the final route is approved, each landowner, Wyatt said, will negotiate their own deal with the company. “It’s usually either direct purchase or an annual stipend for the land, whatever. But each piece of land is different and each is negotiated different,” he said.

And there are benefits to the town. “We worked on a value for each different town and presented that to [the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission], it’s obviously so preliminary I wouldn’t want to get into it,” Wyatt said. “But there’s an annual income to the city and municipality for a pipeline.”