A proposed 15-mile natural gas pipeline extension running from the Antioch area into Kenosha County in Wisconsin hints at the scale of ongoing developments in Lake County’s northerly neighbor, as data centers and new housing drive increasing power needs.
According to project maps shared with local officials, the pipeline would extend from an existing line in Lake County, branching off about halfway between Interstate 94 and Route 45, north of Rosecrans Road. Just two miles of the 24-inch pipeline, known as the North Extension or NEX, will be in Illinois.
The $410 million underground pipeline project could be in service as soon as the end of 2028, according to Allen Fore, vice president of Kinder Morgan. Although NEX is a Natural Gas Pipeline Company project, the company is operated by energy infrastructure company Kinder Morgan and jointly owned with Brookfield Infrastructure Partners.
Kinder Morgan says it has an interest in, or operates, 79,000 miles of pipelines across the country, including roughly 2,800 miles in Illinois. NGPL has about 9,100 miles of pipeline.
Fore is an Antioch-area resident himself, meaning this particular project is far closer to homes than other projects on which he’s worked. The project is still in its early stages, and Fore said officials haven’t yet filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a requirement for an interstate project like NEX.
Currently, Kinder Morgan is surveying properties along potential routes to determine the best path, Fore said. To file with FERC, Fore said the company needed to show purpose, need and the ability to develop the project. Although surveying was being conducted along a roughly 300-foot-wide corridor, the pipeline will ultimately only need 50 feet, Fore said.
The surveying process is meant to gather information not readily available elsewhere or visible from the air, with Fore noting the many surprises that can come during the process.
According to a project overview, beyond the pipeline itself, NEX includes a new compressor station, compression additions and modifications at two existing stations, upgrades to existing pipeline facilities, as well as capacity leased on a third-party pipeline.
Lake County notice
Last year, Antioch-area residents were spooked by letters from Kinder Morgan notifying them about the project that included a reference to eminent domain. One resident spoke during a Lake County Board meeting, warning that such a project could exacerbate flooding issues for residents if unmarked underground drainage tiles were damaged.
Since then, residents have said they’re waiting to see where an updated route will go.
In response to those concerns, Fore said agricultural impact mitigation agreements take into consideration existing drain tiles, various soil factors and potential crop loss. Although more focused on agricultural land, these will also apply to any impacted Lake County residents, he said.
“We are responsible for anything we touch in this construction process,” Fore said.
On the Wisconsin side, the impacted properties for a previously proposed route range from longtime local farmers to two properties owned by Sharpless Ave.
According to Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions data, the principal office for Sharpless Ave is in Chicago, at the same address and suite number that the Pritzker Group’s website had as its Chicago office. That webpage has since been taken down.
Attempts to get clarification from Gov. JB Pritzker’s office regarding the governor’s current ties with both the Pritzker Group and the Wisconsin properties were unsuccessful.
Fore said his company has not yet reached out to Wisconsin property owners, since the project’s potential route is still up in the air. He said residents can expect more answers about a new route and next steps in February.
Wisconsin developments
John Holloway, chairman of the town of Paris in Kenosha County, where the NEX pipeline would terminate, said they’ve currently got two power plant projects, the larger of which could be a potential customer for the new pipeline.
Holloway said the town has an under-construction 128 megawatt “peaker plant” — meant to address brief periods of high electricity demand — and a proposed 1,210 MW gas turbine power plant, to be built by Invenergy.
For comparison, the existing Paris power plant, built in 1995, has a total generating capacity of about 400 MW according to the We Energies website. A roughly 1,200 MW coal power plant was shut down in Pleasant Prairie in southeast Kenosha County in 2018, and has since been demolished.
Holloway said the energy push is, at least in part, to support the Mount Pleasant Microsoft data center developments in nearby Racine County, a multi-billion-dollar investment.
“That’s where a lot of this need for power is,” he said.
The Mount Pleasant Plan Commission recently approved site plans for expanding Microsoft’s data center footprint, Holloway said, and he’s heard talk about several more data center projects in the region from real estate people.
Additionally, We Energies has indicated a growing demand for gas because of a growing residential base in the region, he said.
The pipeline will provide up to 185,000 dekatherms per day of natural gas, an industry term that Fore admitted was difficult to explain for laymen.
“That’s not a huge amount, but it’s not an insignificant amount,” Fore said.
The size and scope of the project are based on customer needs, with capacity for additional future use for other entities, Fore said. By law, the pipeline is a “common carrier,” meaning it can’t be built for one entity and could provide gas to a variety of customers in the area.
Federal approvals
While Fore said other Kinder Morgan projects have been approved for the FAST-41 program, that was still to be determined for NEX. Fast-41 is a 2015 act meant to streamline the review and approval of infrastructure projects.
Although the program predates the current administration, President Donald Trump’s second term has seen a push for fossil fuel projects as well as cuts to clean energy efforts, including in Illinois.
Under the leadership of Trump-appointed Emily Domenech, the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, which coordinates Fast-41 efforts, has boasted about a surge of projects, including those relating to natural gas and mining, saying it currently has its “largest portfolio” in the agency’s history.
In November, Domenech announced the Mississippi Crossing and South System Expansion 4 projects, both under Kinder Morgan, would receive Fast-41 coverage.
Illinois Environmental Council Chief Executive Officer Jennifer Walling raised potential concerns around natural gas pipeline projects, including contamination and leak issues, and the risk of explosions.
“Going through a community, there’s risk of explosion, there’s risk of leaking,” Walling said. “If something like that catches fire, it can be really hard to handle, which is why emergency responders need to be funded and understand how to deal with it.”
In response to such concerns, Fore argued that as a gas, any leak “goes up,” as opposed to petroleum or diesel, which contaminates the ground. Pipelines are the “safest way to transport energy,” Fore said, and their lines are operated in compliance with state and federal regulations.
The lines are also monitored around the clock from a gas control system in Houston, Fore said, where they can detect any pressure loss, and have equipment that can sense imperfections in the pipeline to find faults requiring repair.
More broadly, Walling argued efforts should be moved away from fossil fuel infrastructure and towards renewable energy.
“We know what fossil fuel is doing to our communities and our world in terms of climate change, in terms of pollution, in terms of other disruptions to our communities,” Walling said. “We need to get more renewables on the ground.”
