Pipeline company uses eminent domain to try to force Boston to let it dig up streets for new pipeline in West Roxbury

Algonquin Gas Transmission this week asked a judge to force the city of Boston to let it dig a trench under Washington, Grove and Centre streets in West Roxbury for a high-pressure gas line.

City officials have sided with residents along the route, who worry the pipeline could explode, especially since it will terminate in a "metering and regulating" station across the street from the West Roxbury quarry. In its lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Boston, the pipeline company says the city has effectively refused to grant the easements it needs to build the pipeline, so it's exercising its right under a federal natural-gas law to take the easement under eminent domain. The company says it won that right back in March, when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the 4.1-mile pipeline's route from Westwood into West Roxbury.

Algonquin acknowledges that technically, the city Public Improvement Commission has not actually rejected the easement request. But the commission has dragged its feet too long reviewing the proposal and Algonquin says it wants to get this thing going already.

The company says it was willing to pay the city $600,000 for the required easements even though its real-estate expert concluded they were really only worth $425,000. But now, with the lawsuit underway, the company says it's not going to pay any bonuses; in fact, it wants a judge to award it costs. The company adds it was willing to pay extra to be nice, because the federal pipeline law doesn't even require companies to negotiate with property owners - the law lets companies just condemn property they say they need once the federal government has approved their projects.