Kyle officials accepted a $1.38 million payment as part of a 2019 settlement agreement among the city, the Permian Highway Pipeline, LLC and Kinder Morgan Texas Pipeline, LLC.

Council accepted the payment during its Dec. 1 meeting, and city documents state the settlement agreement called for Kinder Morgan to remit to the city a total of $2.7 million "to protect the city from incurring any undue financial burden caused by the pipeline on existing infrastructure and requires Kinder Morgan to participate in the alleviation of conflicts between the pipeline and future infrastructure projects in the city."

During the Dec. 1 meeting, Kinder Morgan Vice President Alan Fore said while construction of the roughly 420-mile pipeline is essentially complete, there are still more steps in the process coming.

“I do want to note that when you put pipelines into service, there are several stages to that," Fore said. "You begin to put natural gas into the system, and we’re doing that now. We won’t formally be in service until early next year.”

Fore said the next payment to the city pertaining to the settlement agreement will be issued sometime in 2021.

City information states some of the settlement funds will go toward improvements to Mary Kyle Hartson City Square Park, about which council also received an update Dec. 1.

Those improvements will include upgraded ADA access, a 20-foot-wide promenade, expanded seating areas, picnic table areas, a low-profile kid corral and an educational rain garden.

For more information on the Kinder Morgan settlement agreement, visit www.cityofkyle.com/communications/kyle-city-council-approves-settlement-agreement-kinder-morgan.