The owners of a luxury home furnishings store in Conroe have been granted a temporary injunction that, for now, puts a stop to construction of a natural gas pipeline and compressor station next door.
Montgomery County District Judge Vincenzo Santini granted that relief to family-run Bartholet Properties Monday afternoon, following a two-day evidentiary hearing where Blackfin Pipeline had argued forcing it to stop construction would cost it millions in damages each day.
The lawyer representing the Bartholet family, Houston solo practitioner Seth Rubinson, who has represented pipeline companies in other litigation, made it clear in an interview with The Texas Lawbook Tuesday that both he and his client are not “anti-pipeline” and “believe infrastructure projects are important.”
“But this is a case about enforcing a restrictive covenant,” Rubinson said.
While driving to the courthouse in Conroe Tuesday morning to help his clients post a $5,000 bond to effectuate the injunction, Rubinson explained that the court heard evidence that the 193-mile long Blackfin Pipeline is intended to ship gas from Colorado County, just west of Houston along Interstate 10, to Jasper County, just north of Beaumont.
Four natural gas compressor stations are planned to be built along the route, including the one being challenged in Conroe. The Conroe facility, according to court records, is expected to operate at about 100 decibels, roughly twice the noise level of traffic zooming down Interstate 45 in front of the Bartholets’ store.
In addition to that constant noise, the operators told the court they expected as many as 144 “blowdowns” a year at the facility, which occurs either during routine maintenance or in response to an emergency when pressure is released from the pipeline. The blowdown lasts about 15 minutes and causes a “sonic boom” that is “loud enough to be felt.”
Counsel for Blackfin, David J. Beck and Geoff Gannaway of Beck Redden, did not respond to a request for comment. But Cody McGregor, a spokesman for the pipeline, emailed a statement to The Lawbook highlighting the safety of the project and indicating an appeal would soon be filed.
“Safety is at the core of everything we do, and this project has been approved by all appropriate regulatory agencies including city and county officials — pipelines like this are the safest way to transport the energy used by Texans every day,” the statement reads. “We are disappointed with today’s decision, but we look forward to appealing it vigorously and exercising all our legal rights to achieve a just resolution. In a county that has historically supported property rights and Texas’s energy industry, this ruling clearly caters to one individual and not the state or county at large. We expect to find a less conflicted venue in our appeal.”
Judge Santini wrote in his 17-page order enjoining construction of the project that the case “is not about whether a natural gas pipeline and compressor station are inherently dangerous or whether they will cause catastrophic harm,” and that it wasn’t about whether such infrastructure is a “valuable resource to our modern living,” a “nuisance per se,” or a “negligent nuisance.”
“Quite simply, this case is about the ability to enforce restrictive covenants on an encumbered property,” he wrote.
The Bartholets built their business on the tract of land along I-45 in June 2011. The adjacent property was purchased by the pipeline in November 2023. In June, the Bartholets began noticing construction activity on the lot that borders theirs to the north In July, they filed this lawsuit seeking injunctive relief.
According to the restrictive covenant the Bartholets entered into with the prior owner of the adjacent tract of land, both parties agreed to “not use or permit the use of their respective tracts or any portion thereof for any purpose which is a public or private nuisance; which may be offensive by reason of odor, fumes, smoke, vision, pollution or refuse; which produces noxious, toxic, caustic or corrosive quantities; which produces fire, explosive or other damaging or dangerous hazard including the storage, display or sale of explosives, not including fireworks; any smelting, slaughterhouse, tannery, junkyards of any kind, salvage facilities of any kind or purpose, stockyards, massage parlours, adult entertainment or other sexually oriented businesses.”
Judge Santini wrote that the compressor station “will emit a constant noise as loud as a siren rising to the level of a substantial interference,” making the operation of a business next door “definitely offensive, seriously annoying, or intolerable.”
“In addition to the constant roar from the compressors, the Bartholets would have to contend with the even louder blowdowns that would occur on a regular basis,” he wrote. “Although it may not be the defendants’ desire to build the Conroe compressor station with the specific intent to cause harm, they are building with knowledge of the noise levels that will emanate from normal business operations. The Court finds defendants have breached the restrictive covenants by engaging in an intentional nuisance.”
Rubinson said that during the two-day hearing, which took place Aug. 29 and Sept. 4, counsel for Blackfin focused on presenting testimony to show the project was both safe and “state-of-the-art.”
“You can have the safest facility possible, but you’re building a natural gas compressor station 150 feet away from our clients’ business,” Rubinson said, noting some parts of the facility are 500 feet away from the Bartholets’ store. “Todd Bartholet negotiated this [restrictive covenant] in 2011, and that’s what this was always about. Our view has always been infrastructure projects are very important, but you have to respect existing private property agreements.”
Should Blackfin be allowed to complete the project and get the compressor station operational, Rubinson said it would “absolutely destroy” his client’s business.
Rubinson said something that stuck out to him during the hearing was Blackfin’s evidence regarding alternative sites for the facility.
“I don’t think Blackfin did a particularly good job of explaining why they didn’t choose alternative sites,” he said.
Judge Santini was also presented photographic evidence of the other three compressor stations being built along the pipeline. All of them were in “completely rural areas with nothing around them,” Rubinson said, “which was very interesting to me.”
“When you look at pipeline development, there’s nothing like this, historically,” Rubinson said.
Judge Santini did offer critiques of both sides, noting in his ruling that the plaintiffs had “incorrectly focused on defendant Blackfin’s activity being a nuisance per se” and on concerns about “potential future harm.” And he wrote that the evidence showed Blackfin knew the property they planned to build on “was encumbered by restrictive covenants,” and that they still made a “calculated decision to proceed” with construction there rather than pursue alternatives.
“Defendants’ decision to pursue the current location is the main reason they are in this pickle,” he wrote.
“Defendants’ sole reason to deny injunctive relief rests on the size and cost of defendants’ project. Such a large undertaking deserves the best path forward and defendants’ risky decision to build instead of abide by the restrictive covenants does not rise to considerable magnitude when this is a risk of their own making and not that of plaintiff,” he wrote. “… Defendants cannot simply state on the one hand, this is an undertaking of considerable magnitude, while ignoring the findings in a low cost title search and choosing a site that is not encumbered. If this is such a large cost with deadlines and billions on the line, Blackfin should not have made this risk. Defendants’ need to violate restrictive covenants is not a need at all but rather a choice of convenience.”
Judge Santini has scheduled the case for trial in May.
The case number is 25-07-11774.