One of the largest pipeline companies in North America is planning two massive natural gas pipeline expansion projects across Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi.

Houston-based Kinder Morgan’s Mississippi Crossing project involves building a new 206-mile pipeline through Washington, Sunflower, Humphreys, Holmes, Attala, Leake, Neshoba, Newton, Lauderdale, and Clarke counties, Mississippi, and Choctaw County, Alabama. The project also involves constructing three new compressor stations in Mississippi.

The project would involve crossing the Natchez Trace Parkway in Attala County, Mississippi, near Kosciusko. Part of the National Parks System, the parkway is a 444-mile scenic road through Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi that follows the Old Natchez Trace, a route originally used by Native Americans and later by European settlers moving into the South.

Separately, Kinder Morgan is planning to the South System Expansion 4 Project, which would entail building 290 miles of 42-inch, 36-inch, and 30-inch natural gas pipelines across Georgia, Alabama, and a sliver of eastern Mississippi. The new pipeline would mainly be parallel to existing pipelines.

Both projects would need authorization from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to proceed. Kinder Morgan applied for South System Expansion 4 in October 2024; it has not yet officially applied for Mississippi Crossing. FERC’s authorization would allow the company to use the power of eminent domain to force landowners to access to their land for the pipeline route.