By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Jerry and Elaine Bruns’ farmland near Pemberville has been in their family since the 1860s. They have no intention of giving a pipeline company permission to damage it – no matter how much money is offered.
The Bruns are being joined by 14 other Wood County families who are standing up to Kinder Morgan pipeline company, which is planning to build a $500 million ethane pipeline from southeast Ohio to Canada, passing through their land on the way.
On Thursday, the landowners listened in court as pipeline representatives said the residents were being greedy and were holding out for a better price.
Not true, Jerry Bruns said. “We told them from the get-go. We don’t want the pipeline, no matter what the money.”
This is clearly not about the money, he said. “This has been going on for two years.”
On Monday, the families will be in court again, trying to convince the judge that eminent domain law does not give Kinder Morgan the right to bury a pipeline on their land.
According to their attorney, a private pipeline company’s taking of land for its own gain violates the Ohio Constitution’s strict protection of private property rights. The action filed on behalf of 15 families in eastern Wood County opposes the efforts for the Utopia pipeline intended to send ethane from southeastern Ohio to a Canadian plastics factory.
Bruns said he and other families objected to the land surveys by the Texas-based pipeline company – to no avail.
“They got a restraining order. We couldn’t even go on our own property,” he said.
The proposed Utopia line would run south of Pemberville, then north of Bowling Green, then cross the Maumee River southwest of Waterville. The 12-inch line would travel through 21 miles of Wood County. The Kinder Morgan company has plans for construction of the line to start at the end of this year and continue through 2017.
Because the line would be moving ethane, a byproduct of the shale fields, it is not subject to the same approval process as natural gas pipelines.
But the pipeline would cause the same damage to his fields, according to Bruns, who said the Utopia map shows it running “the whole entire length of the farm,” south of Pemberville.
“It’s basically going to damage the soil of the farm,” by compacting the soil, he said. Despite claims by the pipeline company that the ground will be restored to its present condition, Bruns has seen the effects of such projects. A portion of his fields was packed down by a heavy truck five years ago, “and nothing is growing there yet,” he said.
Other families involved in the court action own building lots that the pipeline will effectively render unusable, Bruns said. Nothing can be built on the pipeline or on the 50-foot right-of-way requested.
“That’s a private company taking our land for their own use,” he said. “They’ll never pay a nickel of property tax.”
It’s not like the Utopia line will provide natural gas to stops along the way through Ohio, he added. The ethane is intended for the NOVA Chemicals company in Ontario.
“It’s basically a cheaper highway,” to get the ethane to the Canadian plant, Bruns said.
The local families have asked that the pipeline company consider placing the line along road right-of-ways, to avoid going through farm fields or housing lots. The Wood County commissioners have also asked the company to consider routing the pipeline along highways to lessen the burden on landowners.
The families will be in Wood County Common Pleas Court before Judge Alan Mayberry on Monday to plead their case.
