GREEN: Nexus pipeline opponents are seeking volunteers to aid in challenging the route of the proposed supersize pipeline that would cut through Green, New Franklin, Medina and other communities.
The call to action came Thursday night at the city’s Central Administration Building as the city, Summit County and New Franklin hosted a nearly two-hour meeting to update residents on the status of the fight to keep Nexus out of Summit and Medina counties.
About 80 people attended the standing-room-only session.
Attorney David Mucklow, who represents many of the residents protesting the natural gas pipeline, said the Coalition to Reroute Nexus will continue to fight for an alternate rural route rather than through cities where schools, athletic fields, wetlands and underground mines exist.
Green Mayor Gerard Neugebauer stressed a strategy has been formed, but neither he nor Mucklow would disclose the plans since the meeting was being streamed on the web.
Both men said a proposed alternate route that would run south of Canton and Massillon in Stark County was whitewashed in the Nov. 30 final impact study report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) study team. The Environmental Protection Agency said the alternate plan should be studied.
The mayor said an explosion along the 36-inch pipeline would be much greater in urban areas than the alternate rural route.
Neugebauer said Nexus and Spectra Energy, which was sold to Embridge Energy of Canada, want to bring the route through Ariss Park, which has lacrosse and football fields. Baseball fields are planned at that park, while Greensburg Park, where four baseball fields exist, also would be clipped.
The 350-acre Singer Lake Bog, owned by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, is targeted in the Nexus plan, Neugebauer said, adding that he believes that path is too much of a risk for the wetlands and surrounding environment and habitat. Also in the path would be Nimisila Reservoir and the Nimisila and Comet Lake dams.
“For some reason they really want to come through Green,” the mayor said. “They think they will make more money by taking this route, because [money] is what this is all about.”
Mucklow said, “FERC not only encourages these bullying tactics but overtly supports the efforts of pipeline applicants.” He said FERC is funded 100 percent by the applicants.
“FERC’s budget has grown 51 percent from $280 million a year to $400 million,” he added. “It has institutional or structural bias. To deny a pipeline means to deny its own funding.”
Residents also spoke up at the meeting.
“There is only one way this pipeline gets stopped: That is we don’t let it happen,” said Michael Conley of Green. “That’s not me standing in my front yard blocking a bulldozer. That’s us standing in my front yard blocking a bulldozer.”
“We need to take this thing to the court of public opinion,” said Paul Gierosky of Medina County, leader of the Coalition to Reroute Nexus. “This is going on all over the country, because we have no energy policy in this country.
“FERC is a rubber-stamp machine; they approve everything,” Gierosky charged while urging residents everywhere to become involved with the coalition.
A resident near the Singer Lake Bog asked whether property taxes would decrease if people can’t sell homes being devalued by the Nexus proposal.
She was told residents have to file a complaint form with the county’s Board of Revision between Jan. 1 and March 31 to arrange a hearing to complain about their property taxes.
Another resident suggested the county take action since it is aware of the situation.
“We’ll talk about that,” said Summit County Law Director Deborah Matz.
Meanwhile, New Franklin Mayor Al Bolas urged residents “to go after FERC, not the county.”