Davidson College says a pipeline Piedmont Natural Gas plans to build across its campus would damage the college's 200-acre nature preserve, the site of years of research.

In a strongly worded letter last week to state and federal regulators, the college accuses Charlotte-based Piedmont of withholding information about the pipeline's route until January. Construction, the college says, would start in March.

"The obvious goal was to corner Davidson College by refusing to share information," wrote an attorney for the school. "This refusal to deal openly and honestly with Davidson yielded a siting decision that devastates the Davidson College Ecological Preserve."

The college says Piedmont's contractors trespassed on its land to survey the pipeline route and cut down trees inside the ecological preserve, which covers about a third of Davidson's 600-acre campus.

Piedmont said it regrets "communication challenges" with the college. But it says the proposed route best meets siting factors including public safety, environmental impacts, disruption to neighbors and cost.

"We strongly disagree ... with the college's characterization of our actions and intent on this project," Piedmont said in a statement. The company said it will respond in detail to Davidson's charges in a letter to the regulatory agencies.

Both sides said Wednesday they're talking and hope to amicably resolve the dispute.

"At the end of the day, we want a productive relationship with Davidson College," said Piedmont spokesman David Trusty.

The eight-mile line would be part of a 133-mile pipeline by which Piedmont would serve Progress Energy's Sutton power plant near Wilmington. Sutton will be converted from a coal-fired plant to one fueled by natural gas.

Piedmont has applied for permits from the N.C. Division of Water Quality and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Last week it asked for permission from the N.C. Utilities Commission.

State law gives utilities authority to condemn land for pipelines. But "our goal is to work some sort of agreement out," Trusty said. "We certainly do not like to go there, so our goal is to work with property owners."

Trusty said the company held public meetings that showed a corridor for the pipeline, with alternative routes inside the corridor, in the summer of 2010.

Davidson says it started asking Piedmont for information on the project in July 2010, but learned the specifics only in January. It claims Piedmont delayed disclosing its plans until after approaching smaller landowners along the route.

The college says Piedmont has proposed a permanent easement 70 feet wide and temporary work space 20 feet wide on each side of the easement. Easements must be cleared of trees, so the project would cut a wide gash across the preserve.

Covered mostly by pine forest, the preserve includes a stream, wetlands and a hardwood stand the town has identified as of high ecological value. The dwarf-flowered heartleaf, a threatened plant found only in the Carolina Piedmont, grows there.

Davidson says the multiple gas and electric utility easements that cross its campus shows that it cooperates with utilities. Piedmont could avoid harm to its nature preserve, it said in the letter to regulators, by building the new line beside two existing pipeline easements that cross its property.

Among the research in the preserve is a 12-year study of reptiles and amphibians at a stream in the pipeline's path, the college said. Biology professor Michael Dorcas, who leads the research, referred a request for comment to a college spokesman.

"It is a unique, long-term ecological project that would be devastated by the proposed siting of this pipeline," Davidson's letter said. Piedmont's "covert approach" to planning the route, it charged, prevented discussions with the college about alternatives.