Drilling, Fracking & Pipelining are Unfriendly to Local Residents

Residents fearful for future of their homes, blame nearby drilling

From an Article by Alex Taylor, WTOV News 9 (Steubenville), August 18, 2017

TORONTO, Ohio —Drilling for the Rover Pipeline may be the cause of crippling damage to one road in Toronto and after two weeks and no one taking responsibility, residents are fearful for their future.

“About two weeks ago I started noticing things. Like on August 7th there were two decent size cracks in the wall in the basement and now it seems like there’s two more. I got a total of eight now that weren’t in there before,” says resident Todd McDonald.

Todd McDonald says that’s not all. Crumbling hillsides just feet from his brother’s home and sinkholes in the middle of his parents’ yard, who have lived on this street for the last 40 years

“We grew up out here so we’ve been in the area a long time. My parents built their house about 40 years ago and we played in the hills when we were young,” says McDonald.

Now with the persistent damage, in addition to the landslide that happened two weeks ago, he’s afraid his family is going to have to leave too and more residents fear they are on the brink of being forced out of their homes. Others already left.

“I have a daughter here and my nieces and nephews they all grew up here and my brother and his family had to go somewhere else and I’m getting to the verge. Where is it safe?” says McDonald.

McDonald says he’s never seen it like this until the Rover Pipeline began construction here near his home on Hale Road in Toronto (Ohio) a few months ago. He and his neighbors think the drilling is to blame.

McDonald says he feels that the pipeline is responsible for the landslide and continuous damage and he feels they need to own up to what they’ve done and do what they can to fix the situation.

Initially the pipeline did offer up money for those residents who didn’t feel safe, so that people could leave the area if they chose to, but he hasn’t had any returned calls from Rover in a week.

News9 reached out to Rover numerous times during the week and have not heard anything in response to these residents situation.

#########################

Gas pipeline raises freedom of religion issue in WV

From an Article by Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, March 2, 2017

The Hare Krishna community outside Moundsville, W.Va., signed leases in 2010 and 2014 to sell the shale gas under its properties, but February 28th the community filed a federal lawsuit challenging an eminent domain action that would result in a pipeline on their sacred land.

The lawsuit says Rover Pipeline LLC’s proposed pipeline route is an infringement on its freedom of religion rights and “seeks to take a non-metaphorical bulldozer through the Vrindaban Parties’ property, and in turn, through their most sincerely held holy sites.”

The lawsuit, filed by Eco-Vrindaban Inc. and Iskcon New Vrindaban, part of the Krishna community called New Vrindaban, seeks to block Rover’s legal request for immediate access and possession of the pipeline pathway through two Krishna-owned properties. It was filed in U.S. District Court in Wheeling.

Energy Transfer Partners, the same company that is building the 1,200-mile Dakota Access Pipeline, wants to build the 713-mile Rover Pipeline to carry shale gas from Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio into Michigan and Ontario, Canada.

Gabriel Fried, an executive agent and board member in the Krishna community, said the company’s proposed pipeline route would cut through properties that hold two of the community’s seven sacred temples.

“These are sacrosanct properties,” Mr. Fried said. “Our goal is to protect these properties. We’re not trying to stop the pipeline or progress. We’re amenable to finding a route we and the company can be happy with.”

On the two Krishna-owned properties, the company wants to build the pipeline on a permanent 50-foot-wide right of way about 3,000 feet long. Energy Transfer has offered the property owners $7,000.

The 26-page lawsuit says that although the community has signed leases to sell the gas under its properties as part of a master plan, those leases do not allow for any surface disturbances. And although that plan defines certain areas where drilling and pipeline activity may occur, it “blocks off other sacred areas from any outside intrusion.”

Energy Transfer received a permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on February 3rd that allows it to begin construction and also file eminent domain lawsuits against property owners who don’t want the pipeline on or through their properties. More than a dozen property owners in Washington County in Pennsylvania were subject to the eminent domain lawsuit filed by the company.

The Krishna lawsuit, filed by attorney Thomas Butz of the Washington County firm Smith Butz LLC, states that Rover cannot meet the legal burden of demonstrating a compelling governmental interest for siting the pipeline through New Vrindaban’s holy grounds.

Based on Hindu teachings and texts, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or “ISKCON,” was started in 1965 in New York City. The 200-member settlement in West Virginia was established in 1968 as a sacred and spiritual community “known worldwide for cow protection, simple living, holy pilgrimage, spiritual education and loving Krishna,” according to the lawsuit.

“Rover’s proposed pipeline easements would desecrate the New Vrindaban holy sites and steal sacred pilgrimage areas,” the lawsuit says.

#####################

See also: Residents gather at YMCA’s Camp Birkett near Silver Lake to protest Rover Pipeline