Susanna Woody is tired of watching jet fuel tankers rumble through her Del Valle neighborhood.
Scores of 18-wheelers, each carrying 8,000 gallons of jet fuel, spew exhaust and zip along the highways and back roads every day on their way to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. Neighbors worry about accidents, pollution and traffic, Woody said. But in 2027, many of those trucks could disappear from those roads.
Now, as Austin’s airport undergoes a massive expansion and the demand for jet fuel grows with it, a new pipeline promises to change how that fuel reaches the airport. The 20-mile underground line is expected to begin carrying more than 600,000 gallons of jet fuel to the airport each day by next year, eliminating the need for deliveries from more than 100 tanker trucks.
Residents who have been long burdened by industrial traffic, pollution and the potential hazards of having tank farms so close to their homes say the 10-inch pipeline offers a safer way to supply the growing airport.
“We don’t have an alternative to fossil fuels, so it is what it is, right?” said Woody, president of the Del Valle Community Coalition. “If we can save the environment by getting cars off the road or trucks off the road, then let’s do it.”
Flint Hills Resources, a refinery that supplies fuel to the airport, is paying for the pipeline. No taxpayer money is being used, said Jake Reint, vice president of public affairs for the refining company. The company is building the pipeline and will maintain it.
Flint Hills Resources declined to say how much the pipeline will cost to build.
The pipeline, which is about half-finished, will largely follow State Highway 71 northwest from Bastrop. About 81% of the route will run through Texas Department of Transportation rights of way, with 12% on airport properties and 7% on private land.
The project is moving forward as the airport is adding 32 gates to the facility, nearly doubling the 34 that already exist. Other projects include new taxiways, a parking garage and a central utility plant.
The airport currently serves 20 million travelers each year. That number is expected to jump to 30 million by 2037.
That growth means a need for more jet fuel. But previous efforts to expand the airport’s fuel infrastructure have faced opposition. In 2022, city leaders narrowly approved construction of a tank farm over the protests of neighbors and environmentalists who said the tanks would be too close to residents.
The pipeline will allow Flint Hills Resources to meet the fuel demands of the airport as it grows, Reint said.
“A pipeline is much better at adjusting to variable demand than a trucking system, especially if there’s bad weather, especially if there’s congestion and other things that can make it harder for a truck to do a 40-mile round trip a few times a day,” he said.
Planning for the Bastrop-Austin Texas pipeline started more than six years ago, when the company began exploring whether the project was practical and necessary, Reint said. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought air travel to a near standstill and raised questions about whether passenger demand would recover.
When the pandemic eased, Flint Hills Resources revived the project in earnest and started meeting with the community. Company representatives took environmental advocates, neighborhood groups and residents to tour their Bastrop facility and gave presentations at government meetings. The outreach impressed Woody.
“People just do what they want to do,” Woody said. “It was nice to know that there were companies that actually want to hear our input instead of trying to just bypass the community and just do it. That was refreshing.”
Ultimately, the project won the support from groups like PODER, an environmental advocacy group. Executive Director Susana Almanza said she approves of the project because it would be safer than the current method of fuel delivery to the airport.
“You would cut all of the possibilities of disaster, but also the industrial traffic and industrial pollution coming in,” she said.
