NEWS

Taking sides at pipeline hearing

Todd Hill
Reporter
Keith Rowland, at the lectern, addresses representatives from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during the agency's public hearing on the Rover gas pipeline's draft environmental impact statement, Wednesday at Buckeye Central High School in New Washington.

NEW WASHINGTON - Officials from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, visiting the Crawford County village of New Washington for the second time in little over a year Wednesday evening, heard from farmers, trade unionists and a couple of attorneys during a hearing concerning the twin Rover natural gas pipelines that are proposed to go into the ground across the area.

Specifically, what brought about 100 people to Buckeye Central High School was FERC's draft environmental impact statement on the project, which states that "most impacts on soil would be temporary and short-term," and that "impacts on geological and soil resources would be adequately minimized."

Some at Wednesday's hearing begged to differ with that assessment.

Donald Fenice, noting that Rover hopes to have the lines in the ground from southeastern Ohio to Defiance, in the northwestern corner of the state, in about a year, said that "on this time schedule they will be doing a lot of damage to some fields."

"They will be working in a lot of unfavorable soil conditions. It's going to help the trade unions, but why not compensate farmers accordingly?" he said. The statement drew the loudest applause of any made by the hearing's scheduled speakers.

The $4.2 billion, 711-mile pipeline project would transport 3.25 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from six locations in southeastern Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania to an interconnection hub in Defiance, then up into lower Michigan and ultimately Canada.

Locally, the mainline's dual, 42-inch pipelines would pass just to the south of the city of Shelby in Richland County, and come close to the Crawford County villages of Tiro, where a large wind turbine project is also slated to be built, New Washington and Chatfield. A compressor station along the line is planned near the tiny village of Lykens in northwestern Crawford County.

Energy Transfer, the company behind the Rover project, hopes to have the pipeline online to Defiance by the second quarter of next year, making for an increasingly tight construction window. Locally, the pipeline will cross land devoted almost exclusively to agriculture, which is why the company hopes to avoid construction during the winter months.

The company still awaits a certificate of public convenience and necessity from FERC, the final go-ahead, probably by the third quarter of this year. But the conclusions reached by the federal agency's draft EIS certainly represent a significant hurdle leaped.

"We determined that construction and operation ... would result in limited adverse environmental impacts, with the exception of impacts on forested land," FERC's statement reads.

Scott Hare, the son of a local landowner and a drainage contractor, told FERC's representatives Wednesday that drain tile is the biggest concern of agricultural producers in north central Ohio.

"Our livelihood depends on it. If we get a two-inch rain when that tile is out of commission, 300 acres are under water, and the landowner is not getting compensated. That needs to be corrected," he said.

"If we get stepped on, your plates aren't full. We treat our farmland like it's our first-born son."

Robert White, a farmer from the Marysville area who said he has three pipelines running under his land, countered that he's never incurred any damage to his crops from the lines, that there's been no increase in his insurance premiums, and that his property values are now higher.

"Come to Marysville. The building going on there is unbelievable. The benefits really do outweigh what might happen," he said.

Some people in the audience could be heard remarking that White should go back to Marysville.

Michael Braunstein, a Columbus eminent-domain attorney whose firm, Goldman & Braunstein, represents 250 landowners along the pipeline's route, accused Energy Transfer of not negotiating easement contracts fairly.

"There will be a virtual tsunami of eminent-domain lawsuits on the state level and maybe the federal level as a result of their failure to negotiate. A private entity is making a profit on the backs of these people," he said.

FERC's EIS states that "we are not aware of instances where an interstate natural gas pipeline has resulted in impacts on property values," which Braunstein said defied common sense.

"The entire parcel on which the pipeline sits will be diminished in value. We're not just talking about land, we're talking about human beings who have spent their lives making the land productive, and the damage will likely be permanent."

The draft environmental impact statement can be found on FERC's website at www.ferc/gov/industries/gas/enviro/eis/2016/02-19-16-eis.asp. The window for posting comments about the EIS ends on Monday.

thill3@nncogannett.com

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Twitter: @ToddHillMNJ