GREEN: The city of Green is doubling down on its efforts to stop a controversial natural gas pipeline that would cut through the community.
City Council has approved a $10,000 donation to a nonprofit citizens group fighting the proposed Nexus natural gas pipeline, which would route through Green and the region.
Meanwhile, the city administration is quietly pursing a separate legal strategy of its own.
The donation was approved Tuesday night after several local residents again urged the city to financially support legal action by the citizens’ group Coalition to Reroute Nexus (CORN).
Homeowners and concerned residents also are contributing to CORN, trying to protect their property before the proposed Nexus route is approved through Green. Opponents fear a gas explosion could occurs along the proposed 250-mile route between central Ohio and Canada.
Council President Chris Humphrey said the city is working toward the same goal, with a second strategy and outside legal counsel.
“Certainly we are on the same team,” Humphrey said. “We are fighting for the same interest. We have the same desire that this pipeline not go through our city.”
He stressed that there is a safer southern route through rural Stark County “that has been proposed by the city that makes a lot more sense because the population density that it affects is significantly less.”
“The environmental issues are significantly less,” he said. “Common sense would make you think that [the alternate] is a much wiser route to take.”
He explained that Summit County has agreed to match Green’s investment in the fight up to $25,000, which would include the donation to CORN as well as city legal fees to fund its own strategy, which is being kept under wraps so Nexus officials won’t be able to react before the action is taken.
Estimates of the economic impact to Green and its schools over 50 years range from $110 million to $120 million, according to Humphrey and residents who addressed the council.
“Although that is troubling … to me that’s not the most troubling issue because that’s dollars,” declared Humphrey. “What we are really talking about is the safety of individuals, the integrity of a watershed, the integrity of personal property, liberty interests and all those things that as Americans really get our ire up when we feel like we are being challenged.”
Green resident Tammy Daly said CORN is seeking to appeal and overturn the final environmental impact statement issued recently by a Federal Energy Regulatory Agency panel.
CORN also is seeking an injunction in declaration of rights regarding constitutional regulations since the proposed pipeline is now owned by a foreign company, Enbridge of Canada, as an export pipeline and is a private use and not a public one, which violates the U.S. Fifth Amendment, she said.
“What the city of Green has done thus far has helped stall the pipeline, but now we have an additional opportunity to pursue our strategy with a potential to derail the pipeline,” she said. “With your vote, together we can reroute Nexus and protect Green.”
Green resident Teresa Reno said that in the last 20 years more than 2,000 incidents involving gas transmission lines across the country have been recorded.
She added that her research shows that these pipelines start to corrode within five years due to the chemical makeup of the product they transport. A gas pipeline exploded in Texas in February and shook homes up to 60 miles away.
“Luckily, it was on a rural farm,” Reno said. “This kind of pipeline does not belong in the city of Green.”
In other action, the city accepted a $20,000 donation from the Green Lions Club for the Green Fire Department to purchase emergency equipment and information to aid residents and businesses in case of emergency.
Fire medic Brian Lloyd said the money would be used to Purchase and install residential Knox boxes so fire personnel can enter a home to aid someone without breaking the door; to purchase automated external defibrillators for locations throughout Green; and to prepare and distribute home emergency information pamphlets to aid residents needing assistance from fire or other agencies in Green.
George W. Davis can be reached at: mediaman@sssnet.com.