Fairfield County, landowners prep for pipeline - Things That Affect YOU - Ohioans for Responsible Rural Development

Lancaster Eagle-Gazette
Published November 27, 2011

By Carl Burnett Jr.

Enterprise Products' plan would bring gas from wells in Pennsylvania through area en route to Texas facility

LANCASTER -- Surveyors are plotting a proposed new ethane gas pipeline that will go through Fairfield County, and landowners are being contacted about new right-of-ways to make way for the pipeline.

"I was pretty surprised when a couple of surveyors were on the property. They just showed up one day and wanted to go on the property to survey it," said Heath Harner, who owns property in the path of the proposed pipeline. "I don't think anyone wants a pipeline going through their property, but I already have one nearby."

Enterprise Products Partners announced this month its plans to build a 1,230-mile pipeline to Fairfield County commissioners. The pipeline would stretch from the Marcellus/Utica shale natural gas wells in Washington County, Pa., to Cape Girardeau, Mo., where it will connect to an existing pipeline that will take the gas to the company's natural gas liquids fractionation and storage complex in Mont Belvieu, Texas.

The pipeline would come into Fairfield County northwest of Millersport and follow the old Texas Eastern right-of-way. Expected to have an initial capacity of 125,000 barrels of ethane per day, the pipeline then would go just east of Baltimore and down to northern Lancaster, where it head west through Greenfield and Bloom Townships and into Pickaway County.

The diameter and the cost of the pipeline hasn't been released, Enterprise Products spokesman Rick Rainey said.

"We also haven't set a date for when construction would begin," Rainey said. "We've got a lot of work to do before that."

The pipeline will go through 12 other counties in Ohio: Butler, Clinton, Coshocton, Fayette, Green, Harrison, Jefferson, Licking, Muskingum, Pickaway, Tuscarawas and Warren.

Ethane is a hydrocarbon gas made from petroleum and is the second-largest component of natural gas.

Safety concerns

While Fairfield County is used to new pipeline construction, the announcement for this project came just days before the Tennessee Gas natural pipeline explosion Nov. 16 near Glouster and the Morgan-Athens county line.

The Tennessee Gas pipeline exploded about 8:30 a.m., destroying three homes and a barn and damaging a second barn.

No deaths or serious injuries stemmed from the incident, although two of the homes were occupied at the time. Two people were treated for minor injuries then released.

Rainey said safety always is a concern with the public and Enterprise Products and its personnel.

"Pipelines are one of the safest ways to transport natural gas and products," Rainey said.

From 2006 to 2011, Enterprise Products experienced 113 incidents, including two fatalities, along its pipelines and facilities nationally, according to the Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

One man was killed in June 2010, when an Enterprise Products 36-inch natural gas pipeline exploded when an electric cooperative subcontractor hit the line while drilling holes for new utility poles.

After the accident, Enterprise's automatic shut-off valves cut the flow of gas to that section of the pipeline, and the fire was put out within two hours, Rainey said.

"I'm not going to say all pipelines in the industry operate perfectly all the time," Rainey said. "Things can happen, but we monitor our lines 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We are constantly performing aerial and ground surveys of the pipelines, and we keep property owners informed on what to look out for that could indicate something is wrong and what to do if something goes wrong."

Protecting property rights

The pipeline is generating enough concern that some property owners in its path are hiring attorneys to look after their interests.

At least three Fairfield County law firms -- Crabbe, Brown, and James; Sitterley & Vandervoort; and Jackson, Keller, Shook & Dern in Baltimore -- have joined forces to represent landowners along the route.

Fairfield County Commissioner Steve Davis, a partner with Crabbe, Brown & James, has eliminated himself from any county decisions dealing with the project because he and his law firm are representing some of the property owners.

Harner is one of Davis' clients.

"I just wanted to make sure that all my rights are being looked after," Harner said.

Davis said the company could use eminent domain to obtain property rights because it would be a national project, but most of the pipeline follows another natural gas pipeline in the county.

"We have been getting many calls about the pipeline as the surveyors are coming through and what the property owners' rights are," Davis said.

Davis said the law firms have set up a website -- www.EnterprisePipelineHelp.com -- to answer questions.

"Our goals are to minimize the burden on property owners and maximize their earnings," he said.

David Landefeld, an attorney with Crabbe, Brown, & James, said there have been questions about how wide the right-of-way needs to be during construction and after the pipeline is installed.

Read the full story on the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette website.