About 25 people are expected to speak during a continued public hearing Monday at 6 p.m. regarding a special use permit request for a proposed 53,515 horsepower (hp) natural gas-fired compressor station in Buckingham.

The continued hearing follows a heated public hearing Sept. 26 before the county’s planning commission. During the first portion of the hearing, 28 people scrutinized the proposed station and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a 600-mile natural gas pipeline that, if approved by federal regulators, would span Buckingham County.

During commission hearings, individual speakers are allowed three minutes each while those representing a group are allowed five minutes.

If approved, the station would be located along Route 56 on about 68 acres between Shelton Store and Union Hill roads in northwestern Buckingham. The compressor station would include four turbines that would compress the natural gas, helping transport it through the pipeline. The station would be at the intersection with the proposed ACP and an existing pipeline.

According to county officials, 54 people signed up for the September standing-room-only hearing. Because of the number of participants, the commission decided to recess at 10:30 p.m. and later resume the hearing at the County Administration Complex on Route 60.

A decision on the permit request — for which county supervisors will have the final say — will occur during the Monday, Oct. 24, meeting, which begins at 7 p.m.

In September, no one spoke in favor of the station or the pipeline project — a joint venture being led by Dominion as Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) LLC.

“We look forward to hearing more from the community next week,” said Dominion spokesman Aaron Ruby. “Our primary job is to listen so we can provide credible information to the commissioners and hopefully address people’s concerns. There are still many misconceptions about the compressor station, so we look forward to the opportunity to address those in the coming weeks.”

Chad Oba, chair of Friends of Buckingham (FOB), a group opposed to the pipeline project and compressor station, said the group “is hopeful that the (commission) will carefully listen to and consider all the public comments that they have received and will continue to receive on (Monday).”

In a presentation before the September hearing began, Dominion representative Carla Picard focused on safety, air quality, noise abatement and compatibility with surrounding uses and conformance to the county’s Comprehensive Plan.

Oba was not persuaded.

“We have spent a great deal of our personal time researching and identifying experts who can speak to many of the impacts of a mega-sized industrial compressor station to be built in a rural area with a dense population of homes,” Oba said. “Dominion certainly will not inform them about these impacts. Dominion will walk away once they have achieved their projected goals here. It is us, the citizens of Buckingham county, who would be left living with the disastrous fallout of such a deadly decision.”

Oba said FOB is hopeful the commission will recommend the permit be rejected. “We expect that our county of Buckingham’s elected and appointed officials to watch out for the welfare of all its citizens.”