By VICKI JOHNSON
Ohio Correspondent

TIFFIN, Ohio — A pipeline proposal through Ohio has landowners wondering how the project would impact their farm ground.

Kinder Morgan of Houston, Texas, has proposed the Marcellus Lateral Pipeline Project, a 250-mile pipeline to transport natural gas liquids – which is not the same as natural gas – from the Marcellus Shale, located in Ohio and Pennsylvania, to plants in Illinios and Canada.

The plan is to connect a Marshall County, W.Va., pipeline with the Cochin Pipeline in Fulton County, Ohio. “Natural gas liquids” include hydrocarbon compounds such as propane, butane and ethane.
To help landowners better understand the proposal and how to prepare for easement negotiations, the Seneca County Farm Bureau hosted a meeting in Tiffin with Dale Arnold, Ohio Farm Bureau Federation’s Director of Energy Services. Arnold said understanding the process will help now and in the future.

“There’s stuff on the drawing board to transport other types of fuel through northern Ohio – natural gas, ethanol and alcohol,” he said. “You need to be discussing it. If you’re not at the table at the beginning of this project, you’ll be part of the menu, and we don’t want that. Use this project as a starting point for development a policy for infrastructure.”

Arnold said plans are far from complete.

“This project is still under evaluation,” he said. “Nothing has been filed yet with the Ohio Power Siting Board.”

The exact route has not been decided. “That line on the page was a line of site survey,” he said. “It is preliminary. It’s a draft. It’s not final. It shows where they would like to go.

“You will see adjustments to that line being made, up to one mile to the east or the west of the original position. There’s a tremendous amount of flex.”

When negotiating lease agreements, Arnold said company attorneys might not be well-versed in the needs of agricultural land.
“Many of those folks are four or five generations removed from agriculture,” he said. “It’s our position through part of this process is to make them aware of those things.

“It’s time for you to get a lawyer, and a good one. The easement is one a landowner will live with the rest of his life, as well as several generations (after).”

Arnold also recommended talking to farmers in southern Ohio, who have recently gone through a similar negotiation process for the Rockies Express Pipeline. He reviewed the steps in the permit process.

He offered to facilitate more meetings between landowners and Kinder Morgan representatives. A show of hands indicated the audience’s desire for a meeting.

Eventually, Arnold said, a public hearing will be scheduled. In the meantime, he said the company will be working out agreements with each individual landowner. He added that state law requires landowners to allow survey and other crews on property to collect information.

“Always schedule a time when you can be there,” he said. “You need to show them where erosion control systems are in place, where are tile, what type of soil you have, where are access roads, stream crossings, depth of bedrock.”

Arnold said about 80 percent of a standard lease agreement can be negotiated.

“If you’re bringing a pipeline across Ohio now, a number of things must be done to ensure use of the land is just as good, if not better, that it was before construction,” he said. “You need to set the maximums or the norms for your individual property. That’s going to be as individual for each farmer as a footprint or a fingerprint.”

He said the route can also be negotiated.

“You need to start working on it now,” he said. “For every $1 you spend now, you will save $15 in litigation savings down the road.”
Arnold also recommended township trustees negotiate road maintenance agreements and individual landowners document everything they can.

“It’s time to get the digital camera out and take pictures of everything before construction starts,” he said. “And make sure your (crop) yields are registered with the Farm Service Agency so you can compare future yields.

“Millions of folks might benefit from a project that size. But that doesn’t mean a handful of folks should get steamrolled.”

Although no date has been set, Kinder Morgan intends to apply “soon” to the Ohio Power Siting Board. After the application is submitted to the board, which regulates privately owned items such as pipelines, Allen Fore said a review process takes into consideration possible environmental and archaeological impacts, as well as the need for the pipeline and other topics.

“This is still a lengthy process of review,” said Fore, director of community relations for Kinder Morgan.

“To make a long story short, there are environmental considerations, economic  and aesthetic considerations,” Arnold said.

Agencies involved in the process are the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, Ohio Department of Agriculture, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Department of Development.

“A lot of people are going to be listening to what you have to say,” Arnold said. “You might want to prepare your presentation and how you want to say it.”

Public hearings probably will take place sometime next year. According to the company’s timeline, construction is to begin in July 2011 and be completed in July 2012.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.kindermorgan.com or the Ohio Public Siting Board website at www.opsb.ohio.gov