By Lisa Kochheiser
To the Editor:
I was present during the Nexus pipeline presentation to regional officials at Owens Community College last Wednesday, and was appalled by how the company considered a Toledo lawyer’s questions to be too hot to answer before our County Commissioners (see “Pipeline Firm Defends Process”).
I wondered what they were trying to protect.
Despite the for-public-good picture pipeline companies are portraying, they will turn Wood County into a sacrifice zone if we allow it. Rover (dual side-by-side pipes) and Nexus are already illegally using eminent domain bullying tactics to force relatively new experimental technology, an unprecedented 3 – 42″ high-pressure lines (1,400-1,500 psi), through our county. Just one 42″ pipeline accident would incinerate a minimum area 3,000′ wide. But there are no laws requiring that homes be spaced a safe distance away. What seems like a glaring oversight has actually been intentionally built into the system to allow companies to privatize the profits and socialize the losses to communities and landowners. It is theft of private property.
Read the full post here.