Frustration is mounting for some residents in Florence County as Dominion Energy moves one step closer to adding a natural gas pipeline, leaving some landowners to feel helpless.

Dominion Energy said the expansion is necessary, but neighbors and environmentalists call it unfair and potentially dangerous.

“There’s nothing I could do to fight them,” property owner Reatha L. Hyman Jefferson said. “I’m just a little bubble in a big pond.”

Jefferson owns property in Florence County near Pamplico and the Great Pee Dee River. It’s been in her family since 1912. Dominion Energy already has a pipeline running underneath, first installed in the 1960s.

Dominion Energy has plans and the rights to install another one after the company ordered the condemnation of roughly 20 properties, including Jefferson’s, using eminent domain.

“They are taking over part of my family’s land to do what they want to do: to make money,” Jefferson said. “What right does Dominion Energy have to come and tell me that they have rights to take over my property?”