Category Archives: Mountaineer Xpress Pipeline

Ohio EPA Not Happy with Rover Pipeline

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The Rover Pipeline has been under construction in Ohio for about two months at this point.  It’s not making a lot of friends.

The Ohio EPA has fined Rover $431,000 for 18 separate violations.

That’s a big number, but for a project that’s going to cost an estimated $4,200,000,000, it’s kind of small.

What’s really interesting is that the head of the EPA is frustrated with Rover’s attitude.  In the Columbus Dispatch article linked above, he says, “All told, our frustration is really high. We don’t think they’re taking Ohio seriously.  Normally when we have … a series of events like this, companies respond with a whole lot of contrition and whole lot of commitment. We haven’t seen that. It’s pretty shocking.”

If Rover doesn’t get its act together, they may find themselves facing a stop work order from the State of Ohio.  They were able railroad landowners using federal law, but they are up against an entirely different animal when they tick off the head of a State agency that has the power to stop them in their tracks.

This also doesn’t inspire confidence that the end product is going to be well built.  Management problems trickle down to workers, and quality suffers.  It’s the natural way of all organizations.

UPDATE:  May 11, 2017 — The FERC has halted drilling by the Rover Pipeline at eight locations in Ohio.  Drilling already in progress is going to continue, as stopping the drilling increases the risk of collapse and spills.  The Tuscarawas River location will have independent third-party oversight.  Rover also has to double the number of environmental inspectors per construction spread.

UPDATE: May 16, 2017 — It turns out that the fine was not a fine, but a penalty that it will have to pay and that can be negotiated.  A spokesman for the Ohio EPA seems to have made that comment that’s quoted above, not the head of the Ohio EPA, and everything about the situation is pretty fluid.  It’s more than a little disappointing when facts get distorted by the news outlets.  Who do you trust?

Rover Pipeline Drilling Mud Leak Update

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A directional drilling rig working on the Rover Pipeline leaked a bunch of drilling fluid while it was drilling under the Tuscarawas River a little while ago.  This article from WMFD.com, a local news outlet, is a follow up story highlighting the efforts to clean the mess up and some doubts by the landowner as to whether the clean up is going well.

The Rover representative quoted in the article downplayed the seriousness of the spill, of course.  The Ohio EPA will still be levying fines and monitoring the clean up, so I guess it’s serious enough for that.

We previously noted that Rover is off to a pretty bad start and that all of it’s mistakes are going to shake confidence in the pipeline industry.  We haven’t seen anything to change that opinion yet.

Pipeline Opposition: Rover Pipeline Spills 2 Million Gallons of Drilling Fluid in Wetlands

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The Rover Pipeline is a big project that starts in the northern part of West Virginia, crosses Ohio, and heads up to Canada.  Construction began about a month ago.  They’ve been very busy cutting trees and clearing the right of way since then.  They’ve also been busy getting in trouble.

The Ohio EPA has already issued the Rover Pipeline a Notice of Violation for spilling 2 million gallons of drilling fluid in one location, and 50,000 gallons in another.

The Rover Pipeline already has a checkered reputation as far as construction work goes.  It demolished a historic house that was being considered for the National Register of Historic Places.  It also got an injunction against landowners who were trying to stop Rover from coming onto their property, but forgot to include most of the landowners with whom the Rover Pipeline had not been able to get easement agreements from.

Basically, it feels like this project which has been in the planning stages for years is not well planned.

It does not inspire confidence that the final product will be high quality (or in other words safe).

It also does not inspire confidence that the other major pipeline projects, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and the Mountaineer Xpress, will be any better.

Eminent Domain for the Mountain Valley Pipeline and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

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If you’ve wondered what will happen if you refuse to work with one of the big pipeline companies, here’s the preview.

The Rover Pipeline is just like the Mountain Valley Pipeline, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, and the Mountaineer Xpress pipeline in that they all have eminent domain rights.

Once they get eminent domain rights, your fight is pretty much over.

The judge hearing the Rover Pipeline cases ruled that the Rover Pipeline gets immediate possession of the route that it wants.

Yep.  You read that right.  Immediate possession.  Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

At this point, the pipeline company is using all the might and power of the federal government to take private property and give it to a private company.  It’s no longer a friendly conversation about where the pipeline should go and how much money it’s worth.

Speaking of which, the judge hasn’t ruled on how much money the landowners will get.  We’ll be watching closely for that news.

More importantly, we’ll be watching to see what kind of changes the judge allows to the company’s standard easement agreement.

Reading the linked article is frustrating.  The landowners are frustrated because the Rover Pipeline didn’t work with them — didn’t address the unique needs of the owners and their properties.  That’s justifiable.  The way these pipeline companies have been operating has been ridiculous.

I understand the importance of moving natural gas from here to there.  I think it’s more important to actually work out agreements with landowners.

The Case Against Eminent Domain

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The very large pipelines that will be cutting through West Virginia are using federal eminent domain to acquire property from people who don’t want to sell to them.  The only reason the pipelines can use federal eminent domain is because the pipeline is considered to be a “public use”.

This article by David McMahon, a West Virginia attorney and founder of the West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization, points out why a pipeline shouldn’t be considered a “public use”.  I fully agree with him.  The full article is worth the read, so I won’t summarize it here.

He also points out how West Virginians “are poor because we cede too often and too much to the drillers and pipeline companies”.  Well said, Dave.  Well said.

FERC Won’t Stop the Pipelines, but the States Might

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There are several very big pipelines that are proposed for West Virginia, including the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, the Mountaineer Xpress, and others.  There’s a lot of debate over whether these pipelines are good, with most of the lines being drawn over environmental/economic arguments.  Basically, if the environment is more important to you, then you oppose the pipelines and if the economy is more important to you then you support the pipelines.

If you oppose the pipelines, then this article in the Register Herald holds a tasty tidbit for your consumption.

Autumn Crowe with the West Virginia Rivers Coalition said that even if the FERC green lights [the pipeline], if West Virginia fails to issue one of the permits, the project comes to a halt.

That’s something I had not realized until now, and I think a lot of other people hadn’t realized, either.

When I first started researching the pipelines it took about two seconds to discover that they would have the power of federal eminent domain.  In other words, once the FERC gave permission for the project to proceed, any property the pipeline wanted to cross automatically and immediately belonged to them.

I didn’t think there was any way to stop that from happening.

FERC, after all, has only turned down a small handful of projects in its 39 years of existence.  One Atlantic Coast Pipeline official I talked to said only four.

However, if you can show that the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection shouldn’t issue one of the permits that the pipeline requires, it seems you can actually stop the process.

As I have become more opposed to the pipeline (not on environmental grounds) this gives me and my clients some hope.

Three West Virginia Pipelines, or One?

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Gas Pipelines in Columbia

Here’s an article with some food for thought.

The gist of it is, there are three proposed pipelines that run through West Virginia which originate in the same general area and end in the same general area.  It makes a lot of sense to run all three pipelines on the same right of way.  The only thing is, nobody is thinking of doing that.  FERC is the only governmental entity that has the power to approve/disapprove of any of these projects, and it doesn’t appear to be thinking of them together.  The companies have their own interests, and don’t seem to think that working together will benefit them.  So running the pipelines along the same route is just not likely to happen.

While having three separate pipeline routes benefits this firm, as there will be more agreements to negotiate, we also don’t see the point of using up more land than necessary.  This is an idea that has merit, and there should be a conversation about it.

By the way, here’s a link to more information about the Appalachian Connector project.

Additionally, the Mountaineer Xpress Pipeline will be running through roughly the same areas, as will the

EDIT: It was pointed out to me that this article appeared to be unfinished.  I came back to look, and sure enough, it ended as you see it above.  Guess I must have hit Publish when I meant to hit Save Draft.

I suspect that I was thinking of checking the maps to see exactly where the Mountaineer Xpress and the Rover pipelines ran.  Both are farther north and farther west than the Atlantic Coast and the Mountain Valley.

This article was intended to express support for the idea of running both the ACP and the MVP along the same routes up to a certain point.  I still think that would have been a great idea.  It would have required the ACP and MVP to team up.  The FERC actually doesn’t have the authority to look at these pipeline together unless they are presented to the FERC together as one project.  They don’t connect, they’re not the same company or sister organizations, and they pull gas from slightly different areas and deliver gas from slightly different areas.  It’s quite unfortunate that it couldn’t have been done.  It would have been efficient, and I like efficiency.  It would have had a smaller impact on the environment, and even though I don’t consider myself an environmentalist, there’s no sense cutting two swaths through the mountains when one will do.

Mountaineer Xpress Pipeline

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Columbia Gas Pipeline Group has announced two pipeline projects, one of which will be called the Mountaineer Xpress Pipeline (MXP) and appears to start in Marshall County, WV.  The MXP will be part of a larger pipeline construction project intended to transport gas from the Marcellus and Utica Shales to the Gulf of Mexico.  This is great for us, as one of the issues plaguing oil and gas development in West Virginia is a lack of infrastructure to take the gas to market.

The MXP will transport gas from areas in and around the northern panhandle of West Virginia down to Kentucky. These are the best maps we could find so far.

MXP Map

MXP Map 02

They’re obviously lacking in detail, but we can at least get an idea of where the pipeline is going to run through West Virginia.  Interestingly, one of the Supply Areas of Interest is to the east of the wet/dry gas line.  Upshur, Barbour, Tucker, and Randolph counties are all included.  There’s precious little going on in those counties right now.  Maybe it’s going to pick up as this project picks up.  We’d like to see that.

We ran across an interesting post on a small local news web site called the Hur Herald.  David Hedges did some good research to pick up what’s going on over in his neck of the woods in relation to this pipeline.