 I'm standing in a pipeline right away. So beneath my feet, there's at least one gas line carrying gas away from the well pads that are up here on the mountain and Ultimately carrying it to a larger interstate transmission line, which would carry the gas to the marketplace So when we're talking about that pipeline, we're talking about a pipeline that might be three feet in diameter a huge pipeline That can carry many tens of millions of cubic feet of gas per day The reason you have this open area is so that roots don't interfere with the pipelines beneath me Grasses would be okay, but you don't want to have tree roots that could interfere with the pipelines integrity Therefore this area is kept clear of any trees The fact that this area is kept free of trees though can be an issue because what you're doing is creating a discontinuity in the forest and so some of the smaller species imagine a turtle trying to get from this side to the other side of This clearing might have a hard time on a hot day like this However, it also creates feeding opportunities and grazing opportunities for animals like Turkey and deer. We actually just saw a deer standing behind us here