On April 13th of this year, there was a spill of what turned out to be diesel fuel contaminated drilling mud being used in the installation of the Rover natural gas carrying pipeline.
The accidental spill occurred in the process of boring a passageway for the pipeline under the Tuscarawas River near Canton's Sugarcreek well field and near water sources used by Aqua Ohio to service homes and businesses of a number of Stark County's townships.
The contractor installing the pipeline placed the accidently spilled—contaminated with diesel fuel drilling mud—in two quarries: one near Beach City and Sugarcreek; one near Massillon near Aqua Ohio wells.
There are concerns that notwithstanding Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) and Federal Energy and Regulatory Commission (FERC) finding and demands made on Rover Pipeline LLC ("Rover," Houston, TX) that Rover is not acting quickly enough to remove the contaminated mud from the vicinity of well fields that service the homes and businesses of Canton and highly populated areas of Stark County.
Canton's water superintendent Tyler Converse updated Canton City Council at last night's regular council meeting on the issue of the potential pollution of Canton's Sugarcreek well field water resource that is the source for water supplied to Canton-based homes and businesses.
In the foregoing video, Converse says that his Canton city enterprise department is continuing to monitor the location of the contaminated mud.
Council members last night were front and center in expressing concerns that Canton government would simply sit back and let Rover dictate the timetable for dealing with the problem.
There was talk that Rover might resist moving on to remediation in appealing an Ohio EPA directive (see entire OEPA finding/remediating directive report at the end of this blog) issued about one week ago.
Converse reassured council that such is not and would not be the case.
Canton has retained a consultant and law firm to assist in dealing with getting a satisfactory solution to the spill induced threat.
Superintendent Converse says that each day that the contaminated drilling mud stays in place is another day that the mud might migrate towards the Canton owned well field.
A resource which council president Allen Schulman says is Canton's most valuable financial/economic asset.
Even more important than Canton's approved investment of $5 million in the $700/$800 million Pro Football Hall of Fame Village Project
Stark County stakeholders who should be paying close attention to remediation efforts include residents of:
Jackson Township,
Hills & Dales,
Lake Township,
Lawrence Township,
Massillon,
North Canton,
Perry Township,
Plain Township, and
Tuscarawas Township,
The SCPR has published two prior blogs on this highly important issue which has the "potential" to threaten the well-being of Cantonians/Stark Countians, to wit:
Blog of June 22, 2017 featuring a video of Stark County commissioner Richard Regula who lives in the general area in which the contaminated drilling mud is located,
Blog of July 10, 2017 which has a copy of the OEPA findings of contamination and corollary demand for clean up action to be taken,
As reported in the July 10th blog, the SCPR has learned that initially Rover officials told the OEPA that the company was only going to deal with FERC on the matter as it deemed the OEPA not to have jurisdiction over its operations.
However, as can be seen in the FERC document below, the federal agency is having none of it in terms of playing a federal agency off against a state agency and has in the document fully embraced the Ohio EPA findings and demanded action.
Area media reports indicate that Aqua Ohio is also monitoring the situation on a continuing basis and so far is not detecting any problem with its wells water quality.
Recently, the Stark County Water District on its website published a report on Aqua Ohio water quality as of December 31, 2016, to wit:
Here are the two base documents from FERC and the Ohio EPA.
On the February 11 request of the COalition to Re-route Nexus (Nexus being the name of a high pressure [1400 psi] natural gas pipeline) proposed to traverse Stark County, the Stark County commissioners agreed to set a work session to get more detailed information on Nexus from CORN.
The meeting was held on Tuesday, February 24th.
SCPR Note: Stark County commissioners' work sessions are held almost weekly on Monday and Tuesday of each week beginning at 10:00 a.m.
CORN's objective for the meeting was to convince the commissioners to pass a resolution/send a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) asking that FERC approve Nexus (the partnership project of Spectra Energy/DTE Energy only on the condition that the pipeline be re-routed from its currently proposed route across Lake Township (on a line a little north of State Street).
At Tuesday's meeting, CORN said the coalition had garnered support of its mission from 14 political subdivisions in the pathway of the pipeline. Two such supporters include the city of Green at the northern/western edge of Stark County and Lake Township in Stark.
Spectra/DTE has specifically dubbed the project for website purposes as being the "Nexus Gas Transmission" (NGT) project.
Interesting enough, NGT (i.e. to say the Spectra Energy part of the partnership) showed up at the meeting.
And it appears that NGT was more persuasive than CORN.
For the SCPR learned today that Commissioner Janet Creighton (a Republican) apparently decided immediately after the meeting that she was not going to be a signatory to any letter nor vote for any resolution.
Creighton, the SCPR thinks, signaled clearly during yesterday's meeting she was not favorably disposed to CORN's request.
She was particularly annoyed that CORN's projected proposal would add 10 miles of Stark County which would be traversed by Nexus.
In answer to The Report's inquiry today, Commissioner Richard Regula (also a Republican) said he agreed with Creighton's position.
Only Commissioner Thomas Bernabei is a possibility inasmuch as he said he has not yet made an individual decision as to whether or not he supports CORN's re-route crusade.
But he, as president of the Board of Commissioners, did say that he did not anticipate that there would be an "up or down" vote as a body on CORN's request at a future regular meeting of the commissioners.
If he were to participate, it would be as an individual.
One of the complaints of CORN has been and came up in yesterday's meeting is that NGT refuses to meet with the civic activist group.
As yesterday's meeting broke up, The Stark County Political Report asked NGT spokesman John Sheridan why NGT has refused to meet face-to-face with CORN.
Take a look at this less than a minute video.
i
A snub! And an outright blank stare!!
As shown in the video, Ian Nickey of Hick Partners (a public relations firm out of Columbus) seemed to be in a panic mode in making his way from his place in the second row of chairs through the first row (Sheridan's locale) to insert himself between Sheridan and yours truly.
There appeared to be about half-a-dozen "protectors" of Sheridan in the the NGT entourage.
All of which, in the SCPR's viewpoint, belies the promise by NGT to "be transparent" and to "[welcome] community involvement at all stages," to wit:
Not (i.e. the video above) a flattering picture for Spectra Energy, no?
And maybe even worse, "a red flag" that citizens and government officials across the pipeline corridor need to take a closer look at the proposed project, no?
Stark Countians should be wondering why Sheridan (who, it appears, to himself to be a public relations type) wouldn't answer The Report's question.
CORN, for its part, is not opposing the Nexus pipeline as such; merely its route through Ohio and more specifically (of local interest) Stark, Summit and Medina Counties.
The SCPR agrees with CORN that pipelines traversing American (including, Ohio and Stark County) are a necessity and also happen to be the safest way to distribute natural gas.
BUT, again agreeing with CORN, the pipelines need to take the least intrusive route in terms of population centers so that if one of the pipelines blows (which is relatively rare but which one recently did in West Virgina), human death and injuries are kept to a minimum. Moreover, in a relocation, it is likely that the potential economic/financial loss to property owners will be lessened as well.
What is troubling to the SCPR and should be to Stark Countians (not only on the matter of minimalizing death, injury and property loss) is the apparent incommunicado of Spectra Energy and its partner DTE Energy in refusing one-on-one engagement with everyday citizens like the folks who make up CORN.
While it was laudable and constructive for Stark's commissioners to have hosted yesterday's session as requested by CORN back on February 11, the commissioners may have dropped the ball in not pressing Sheridan hard enough to agree to direct talks with CORN representatives.
One of the problems with private enterprise is that too many of them highhandedly (companies and unincorporated entrepreneurs, alike) think they can invoke public processes (in this case federal government [i.e. the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - FERC] approval of the pipeline) without being directly answerable to affected citizens.
On this count, NGT/Spectra/DTE comes up way short on fielding the legitimate concerns of citizens who live in the neighborhoods that the NGT defined pathway is to traverse. Let the SCPR pause right here.
Another crazy thing about yesterday's meeting (the other being the NGT Nexus group's unwillingness to have direct talks with CORN) was that CORN was not prepared to share with commissioners a detailed map of the alternative plan they have in the works for FERC to adopt as the certified pathway for the Nexus pipeline over that proposed by NGT.
Isn't that wild?
The lack of a map was not likely a factor in Creighton's decision, but it certainly didn't help any that CORN officials seemingly were making a secret of its plan.
The CORN plan, as the video immediately below shows, is designed to go through southern Stark County rather than on a line through the city of Green (Summit County) on a line that would bring Nexus through Stark on a latitude about midway between State Street and Midway Street and on the southern side of Lake-O-Pines Street in Lake Township. As proposed, Nexus would then continue through Marlboro, Nimishillen and Washington townships.
But why no actual map?
It was really strange yesterday as NGT and CORN presented their cases to the commissioners the degree to which that there was any dialogue between NGT and CORN, it was mediated through the president of the Stark County commissioners; namely, Commissioner Tom Bernabei.
The lack of communication in the assessment of the SCPR (which The Report attributes fully at being at the hand of NGT) has a juvenile quality about it.
Major American corporations act this way?
At the end of this blog, The Stark County Political Report presents "the entire session" as recorded by yours truly for readers to get a full sense of NGT's attitude.
The Report thinks that the arrogance of the NGT group comes through loud and clear as one progresses through the video.
Before getting to the full video, The Report has chosen some highlights of the work session for those SCPR readers who do not want to view the full one hour plus video.
But first accolades for Stark County commissioners Janet Creighton and Bernabei.
Before their election in November, 2010; there was no county government structure for a full airing of controversial issues, citizen concerns or oversight of county departments of government. With prior boards of commissioners, citizen/county government interaction was a hit/miss matter.
With their taking office came the institution of work sessions (when needed) at 10:00 a.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays of each and every week.
Consequently, Stark Countians, if they want to be heard or know about how county government functions; only need to avail themselves of a weekly opportunity to attend scheduled work sessions.
It is disappointing to the SCPR that Creighton seemingly summarily rejected CORN's petition without citing a rationale therefore.
But that is Commissioner Creighton. She can be entertaining as a political personality. But such a characteristic could result in her on occasion experiencing "foot in mouth."
The CORN folks are everyday citizens who do not have big corporate bucks at their command like NGT does. CORN impresses the SCPR with the due diligence the group has shown (except for the map thing) in putting together an alternative pipeline plan.
Only in America can a group like CORN succeed. Whether or not a public official agrees with these activists, they deserve a reasoned answer.
Stark Countians should not be pleased with discourtesy that Commissioners Creighton and Regula is demonstrating on this matter.
The SCPR suspects that because CORN seems to have a Summit County political center of gravity, they had little if any chance to convince Creighton and Regula.
CORN is not going to quit despite the Stark County setback.
Should the pipeline eventually be built on NGT's proposed pathway and on the off chance there is an accident within the next few years that cost lives, injuries, or extensive property damage; it is not going to set well that the commissioners invite CORN in and explain their reasons for denying the request that the commissioners weigh-in in support with FERC.
ISSUE THE ECONOMIC/FINANCIAL BENEFITS/DEMERITS OF NEXUS NGT PERSPECTIVE
CORN PERSPECTIVE
To conclude this blog, for those readers who want to take in the entire meeting (1 hours, 17 minutes, 30 seconds), here is the video of entire work session:
B.A. - Political Science
J.D.
AN INDEPENDENT MINDED POLITICAL COMMENTATOR
Until 1976 I was a Republican. Since then I have considered myself a Democrat. So after long term stints of being a Republican, then a Democrat, I have come to the political position I feel most comfortable with - being an INDEPENDENT MINDED ANALYST who demands effectiveness of our politicians - Republican, Democrat or whatever.
I have changed my political affiliation to "non-partisan" by not voting in either political party primary election.
