What follows is the first of a couple of comments we’ll be submitting to FERC expressing our concerns about and opposition to the ET Rover pipeline.  In addition to all of the other serious and compelling issues raised by Michiganders, we think it’s important that FERC recognize the failures of its own processes.

October 28, 2014

Ms. Kimberly D. Bose, Secretary
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
888 First Street, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20426

Re: Docket PF14-14-000

Dear Ms. Bose

I am writing with regard to the Rover Pipeline project (Docket #PF14-14), which is currently at the pre-filing stage. While I share many of the concerns expressed by my fellow southeast Michigan citizens (a very large number of whom have submitted their own comments to this docket) about the lack of necessity of this project, its limited benefits to our state, the disruptions it will cause to private property, and the threats the proposed route poses to sensitive environmental areas, here I will limit my comments to a very important procedural matter: public engagement.

Rover Pipeline, LLC has failed to comply adequately with basic conditions of the FERC pre-filing process and for that reason its application for a Certificate of Public Necessity and Convenience ought not to be accepted by FERC, much less approved.

In its order no. 665 (issued Oct. 7, 2005) mandating participation in the pre-filing process, FERC stressed that “it is desirable to maximize early public involvement to promote the wide-spread dissemination of information about proposed projects”and encouraged applicants “to cooperate with state and local officials, as required by EPAct 2005.” While Rover Pipelines, LLC has held a series of Open Houses along its pipeline route, those meetings, as clearly illustrated by the numerous and uniform comments of local officials listed below (it would be easy to produce dozens more similar comments from landowners), have in no way fulfilled Rover’s obligations as described by FERC. To wit:

Mundy Township Supervisor Dave Guigear said during the meeting he believes more people are concerned about the lack of transparency from Energy Transfer, parent company of ET Rover, rather than [sic] pipeline.

“Nobody I’ve encountered seems to be in favor of this project,” [Mundy Township attorney F. Jack] Belzer said. “There’s not a lot of information forthcoming from them that’s consistent.”

“I think it was an orchestrated disaster in terms of a meeting,” [Atlas Township Supervisor Shirley] Kautman-Jones said. “There was limited parking, the facility was way too small and they only had one set of maps for each county.

Grand Blanc Township Supervisor Marilyn “Micki” Hoffman said ET Rover’s lack of transparency has raised questions among community leaders and residents. Grand Blanc Township has postponed voting on the issue in hopes of getting more clarity on the project “This hit us so fast and we had so many bad relationships established with ET Rover for how arrogant they were when surveying properties,” she said. “And the lack of transparency has also been an issue. We don’t want to rule it out, but at the same time we have a lot of unanswered questions.”

Instead of a podium with a few speakers, [attendees] walked into a packed hub of information boards and scattered Energy Transfer representatives. While there was a “Welcome” board, there was no rhyme or reason to the open house that Linden Mayor David Lossing referred to as a “debacle.”

Genesee County Commissioner Tony Brown (District 6) said, “When they don’t include local government in the discussion, my knee jerk reaction is to say it’s shady.” He pointed out that he had no side, for or against it, yet, but that at face value the secretiveness says something underhanded is going on.

“It was a well-orchestrated disaster,” said Kautman-Jones of the Rover meeting. “It was overcrowded and another thing I found really ridiculous is they had one table with a set of maps for each county. Of course, everyone wants to look at the Genesee County map, and you had to stand in line… They met the pre-filing application requirement of having a public meeting, but it definitely was not for the benefit of the public. They were just doing what was required.” “It’s hard to trust a company that is not being as forthcoming with information as you wish they would be,” [Kautman-Jones] said.

“I’m really frustrated because if this is how they treat elected officials, how are they treating property owners?” [Kautman-Jones] asked. “They aren’t even telling us what they are proposing to do. I feel (Rover) not giving information is a way to get to the filing process with as little opposition as possible. It takes people awhile to think about things and if your window of time keeps getting smaller and smaller, your response time is, too.”

[Ernest] Monroe agrees. The Hadley supervisor said he began receiving calls from concerned residents at the end of August. Rover never contacted the township, nor Lapeer County officials, he said, they just started showing up and surveying property.

“I can’t get good answers from Rover, they’ve just done a deplorable job,” said [Groveland Township Supervisor Robert] DePalma. “Now they’ve hired PR people that are going to come out. I’ve been in marketing for more than 30 years and this is the worst managed project I’ve ever seen… Facts have been extremely difficult to get from Rover.”

ET Rover has not endeared itself to [Oxford Township Supervisor Bill Dunn]. “To be quite frank, they jerked me around,” Dunn told the audience. “I’m not real happy with them.” “I don’t like being jerked around,” Dunn said. “They did lie to me . . . They were not forthright.”

[Fenton] Township Clerk Robert Krug said that when he attended the recent ET open house hosted at Spring Meadows in Linden, ET’s public relations representatives continually said they would find someone to answer questions they couldn’t, and never did. “Everybody had smiles, but nobody had answers,” said Krug.

[Fenton] Township Supervisor Bonnie Mathis said, “ET Rover says that they notified township supervisors, but they didn’t.”

State Representative Joseph Graves added, “They could have done it better and because they didn’t, now there are suspicions.”

Such comments convey the overwhelming sentiments of stakeholders along the proposed route in Michigan. Given such widespread dissatisfaction, how can FERC possibly believe that its procedures and processes are working as intended? For instance, in the FAQ for Gas Pre-Filing at the FERC website (under “What happens at open houses?”), it states:

The goal of the Commission’s pre-filing process is to notify all project stakeholders, including potentially affected property owners, so that Company and the Commission Staff can provide a forum to hear the issues relevant to those stakeholders. The Company may then incorporate proposed mitigation measures into the project design from comments received from stakeholders.

As the comments above make clear, stakeholders along the proposed route have NOT received adequate information nor do they believe that “issues relevant” to them have been heard. Rover’s mode of communication with stakeholders has precluded such productive exchanges. As a result, Rover has, at best, only complied with the letter of the pre-filing rule, merely going through the motions in the most perfunctory manner. Rover has certainly not adhered to the spirit of the rules. This makes a mockery of the process and suggests that Rover does not appear to take its obligations to FERC or to the public seriously. What is the point of requiring public engagement on the part of applicants if that engagement is only going to take place in the most superficial and ineffective way?

In its letter approving Rover’s pre-filing request, FERC states “that when ET Rover files its application with the Commission, we will evaluate the progress made during the pre- filing process.” From the point of view of the public, as represented by numerous local elected officials (not to mention dozens of landowners), Rover has made very little progress. I urge FERC to reject Rover’s application for its failure to fulfill even the most basic requirements of pre-filing as well as to protect the integrity of FERC’s own rules and procedures.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Insko
Groveland Township, MI