Sometimes it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.

That seems to be the tack chosen by Antero Resources when it recently installed a second pipeline under Lake Tyler without the knowledge or consent of the Smith County Commissioners.

Safety is supposedly not an issue in this case, according to company officials and Precinct 2 Commissioner David Stein. That may or may not be true. Certainly no one at the county level knows what kind of pipe was put in, how it was put in, and what its specifications are...until the company tells them. Let’s hope the company has given the county that information. Still, it is too bad if the county wanted to inspect for itself what was put in and how. It’s too late now.

It is hard to believe that with as much controversy as there was over the first pipeline under the lake, a company with as many lawyers as Antero wouldn’t have anticipated that it REALLY needed to get the county’s official permission to go ahead, not just the word of a road and bridge department employee.