Monroe County judge rules Mountain Valley Pipeline developers can’t survey property without permission
From an Article by Sarah Tincher, State Business Journal, Charleston, WV, August 6, 2015
A Monroe County WV Circuit judge has ruled the companies behind the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline can’t survey some landowners’ property without their permission.
After several months of back-and-forth in court, Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Robert Irons decided August 5th that Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC — a joint venture between EQT Corp., NextEra Energy, WGL Midstream and Vega Midstream MVP LLC — failed to establish that the project would provide sufficient public use to justify entering private property without an owner’s permission.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC has pre-filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to build its proposed 300-mile natural gas transmission pipeline — called the Mountain Valley Pipeline — between Wetzel County, West Virginia and Pittsylvania County, Virginia.
The legal battle began in March when landowners in Monroe and Summers counties who had denied Mountain Valley Pipeline surveyors access to their property, which was met by legal threats from the company. But several landowners took the first legal steps, filing complaints in Monroe and Summers county circuit courts March 18.
The complaints, submitted by Derek Teaney with Appalachian Mountain Advocates, argued against the company’s eminent domain rights.
According to the complaints, the right of entry established under West Virginia law does make the power of eminent domain available to certain governmental and corporate bodies; however, Teaney argued, the power of eminent domain can only be exercised in West Virginia if the property is going to be put to public use. For a public use of a property to exist, the complaint states, “the public (must) retain certain definite rights to its use or enjoyment.”
But in a July 31 Monroe County Circuit Court brief, Mountain Valley Pipeline said the “plaintiffs repeatedly confuse two different things.” “The first — the one at issue in this case — involves a company’s right of entry for surveying property that it desires to appropriate,” the filing stated. “The second — the one that may occur in the future — involves a company’s right to condemn property for a public use.
“In allowing entry to survey, the state is exercising its police power. In granting the right to condemn, the state is exercising the power of eminent domain,” the filing continued. “These are two different things.”
Additionally, the filing continued, “Although plaintiffs do not content that their property will be damaged, they argue that they have an absolute right to exclude anyone from entering their property. As MVP shows, however, there is no such absolute right. The state may allow temporary entries for the common good, and this is such an entry.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
East Ohio Pipeline Project to Proceed After Eminent Domain Issue Settled
From an Article by Casey Junkins, Wheeling Intelligencer, August 7, 2015
Wheeling, WV — Sunoco Logistics will move forward with its plans to ship 345,000 total barrels of ethane, butane and propane per day to a complex near Philadelphia via its Mariner East I and II pipelines after the company reached a settlement with landowners in local counties.
This week, officials with Sunoco reached an out-of-court settlement with a group of landowners in Harrison and Jefferson counties regarding the 50-foot-wide permanent easements the company will place on their property to build the second Mariner pipeline. The second line will handle 275,000 barrels daily once it is operational, while the first line can already take 70,000 barrels per day.
“We have settled all of these cases out of court. We have reached agreements with the landowners who disagreed with our initial offers,” Sunoco spokesman Jeff Shields said. “This is a much preferable outcome for all involved.”
Recently, Millersburg, Ohio-based lawyer Thom White said Sunoco was attempting to use eminent domain to take the property needed for the pipeline because his clients believed the price they were offered was too low. The dispute has now apparently been resolved.
Though declining to specify how much Sunoco will pay the landowners to build the natural gas liquids pipeline, Shields said it will be “fair market value.” ”To maximize the value of the Utica and Marcellus, you have to take away the NGL,” Shields said of natural gas liquids such as ethane, butane and propane.
This will be another ethane outlet for drillers working in the Marcellus and Utica shale region, which does not have an ethane cracker. Even as public officials in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia hope firms will build multi-billion-dollar ethane crackers in their states, firms such continue looking for ways to get rid of their ethane.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said domestic ethane production grew by an average of 212,000 barrels per day from 2010 to March of this year. Moreover, industry leaders believe ethane yields from just the Marcellus and Utica could reach 590,000 daily barrels by 2020, which is up from none at all in 2012.
Shields said the Mariner East II will consist of a 20-inch diameter steel pipe buried at least three feet underground. He said unlike a pipeline that ships natural gas, the project does not require a permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. However, there are permits involved when the project will cross a body of water, he said.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
See also: “Hands Across Our Land“
Point Your RSS Reader to FrackCheckWV.net/feed/
