by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 5, 2014 |
Please share and attend: there will be two informational meetings this week, organized and led by landowners and citizens (NOT by ET Rover) for those concerned about the proposed ET Rover natural gas pipeline project and why it is wrong for Michigan and bad for landowners. Our friend Jeff Axt will present information about the project, its potential dangers, its likely devastating effects on private property owners– and what you can do about it.
Both projects are hosted by affected townships, which is (potentially) very promising news. We are hopeful that other townships will follow the lead of Brandon Township in passing formal resolutions of opposition to the proposed route. If municipalities add their voices to those of individual property owners both ET Rover and FERC will have no choice but to listen. Information for the meetings is below, please let your neighbors know and try to make it to one of them yourself. Let’s urge our township boards to standup and then support and thank them for their leadership.
Rose Township says there will be NO representatives from ET Rover at the meeting. We assume the same is true in Groveland.
Thursday, August 7, 7 pm
Rose Township Hall
9080 Mason St.
Holly, MI 48442
Friday, August 8, 7 pm
Groveland Township Hall
4695 Grangehall Road
Holly, MI 48442
by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 5, 2014 |
We’re working on a positive post (believe it or not!) that we’ve been meaning to get to for a while. But things just keep getting in the way. First, the Rover news broke, then we went on vacation in Minnesota, where we spoke to the Friends of the Headwaters), then Enbridge once again flouted a local ordinance, then they went around trying to erase and rewrite history, and then peddled some more untruths. Enbridge has been giving us so many negative things to write about that we haven’t had time to mention a positive one. But stay tuned for that very soon.
In the meantime, we thought we’d call your attention to a couple of national news items that ought to be of some interest, since what is happening around the country– to the west and to the east– is also happening (or, in other cases, should happen) here in Michigan. So let’s connect a few dots:
- If you haven’t seen the latest from Inside Climate News regarding the ongoing scandal surrounding the California Public Utilities Commission and its (mis)handling of matters related to the terrible San Bruno explosion, you’ll want to take a look at Elizabeth Douglas’s latest piece. As always, it’s excellent journalism, although the appalling story Douglas tells of the cozy relations between regulators and industry is sure to raise your blood pressure. What’s happened in California is especially egregious and maybe extreme. But we think it’s also emblematic of the kinds of close ties between regulators and the companies they’re supposed to regulate all over the country. We caught plenty of glimpses of this industry-friendliness during the MPSC proceedings to approve the Line 6B replacement. As our series showed, Enbridge pretty much owned that process.
- Which is all the more reason for citizens to speak up and speak out and take action. That’s what’s happening in Massachusetts currently, as residents there make it clear that they want no part of a newly proposed natural gas pipeline. Their actions should be an inspiration to landowners along the proposed ET Rover pipeline. Their first act of resistance: refusing the pipeline company permission to survey– something we’ve recommended here and that many of you, or so we’ve heard, are already doing. It also looks like there’s a good chance some townships will do the same and also voice their opposition to Rover publicly and formally.
It’s the wild west for oil and gas expansions all across the country right now, a reckless gold rush. Despite what the energy and pipeline companies will tell you, these infrastructure projects are not taking place with the best interests of local communities, landowners, and the environment uppermost in mind. And unfortunately, the agencies charged to protect those interests only seem to serve the interests of industry. That just leaves, well, us.
by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 1, 2014 |
One thing we’ve learned over the past couple of years is that the spokespersons of pipeline companies like tossing estimates around. For a very long time, for instance, Enbridge has been running around Michigan saying that the “vast majority” or “most” of Line 6B landowners have been perfectly happy. But of course, there’s no sound basis for those claims whatsoever.
We mention this because it must be something they teach in p.r. school. Just a couple weeks ago, ET Rover spokeswoman Vicki Grenado said the same thing to the Clarkston News about landowner responses to that project:
“We have certainly heard people on both sides (for and against the pipeline),” said ETP Spokesperson Vicki Granado. “I would say (that) definitely more than 50 percent, more than 75 percent of people, have responded positively . . . It’s definitely more on the positive (side) than the negative, but we certainly have people that still have some questions.”
Needless to say, we’re more than a little skeptical of those numbers– though we have no more reliable scientific data on the question than Grenado. But here’s something pretty telling: at a recent meeting for concerned residents held in Ortonville, out of more than 100 attendees, “nearly all,” according to a show of hands, opposed the project. Was that a representative sample? We can’t say for sure. But Vicki Grenado would have to produce a whole lot of supporters to make her math work. We’re not sure where she’d find them.
At the meeting in question, our tireless friend Jeff Axt, the Brandon Brawler, gave a presentation outlining the very serious concerns about this project shared by many of us. “The current route as proposed is insane,” Jeff told the attendees.
Even better than the vocal citizen opposition to Rover is the action of the Brandon Township Board of Trustees, once again showing the kind of leadership that ought to be emulated all across the state. At a special meeting of the Board, they agreed to draft a formal resolution opposing the project and urging FERC to reject it as currently proposed. Here’s what Trustee Ron Lapp had to say:
“I don’t want to put up with another Enbridge,” said Trustee Ron Lapp. “It’s been a nightmare. We are not their servants, that’s not how government works. I think we need to dig our heels in and say, ‘Not here, we’re going to fight you.'”
A formal resolution by a municipality is, in our view, a major step. If others follow suit, FERC will have no choice but to listen, we think. We hope that Brandon’s example will embolden other townships. There are signs this will happen: Axt will be bringing his presentation to Rose Township next week (details here). Please consider attending and making your views about this unnecessary project known. This pipeline will bring very little benefit to Michigan; it’s headed to Canada. We should resist the taking of private property for corporate gain.
We applaud Jeff Axt for his leadership in this matter!
by Jeffrey Insko | Jul 27, 2014 |
If you’ve spent much time here at this blog, you know we’re pretty big fans of Brandon Township Supervisor Kathy Thurman. Soft-spoken, unassuming, very smart and very tough, Thurman has been a thoughtful, responsive, and brave leader when it comes to protecting her township, its citizens, and its natural resources from Enbridge’s attempts to steamroll through them.
If only we could say the same about all township supervisors in Michigan. The ET Rover situation has provided two good (by which we mean disturbing) examples in the past month, one from our very own Supervisor, Bob DePalma of Groveland Township, the other from Bruce Pearson in Addison Township. Both strike us as rather blustery fellows, self certain and pretty free with their opinions. At the same time, they seem strangely eager to capitulate when pipeline companies come knocking.
Two years ago, we tried to enlist DePalma in efforts to address citizen concerns about Line 6B. At that time, we thought his attitude was pretty dismissive of landowners’ concerns. He seemed to think he knew in advance what those concerns were and therefore didn’t really both listening to them very carefully. But he did listen to Enbridge’s p.r. man at the time, Joe Martucci– and appeared to swallow whole every thing Martucci told him.
It turns out, though, that DePalma isn’t just dismissive of reasonable landowner concerns– the concerns of his own neighbors and constituents. He also, evidently, thinks rather contemptuously of them. Here, for instance, is what he told Brandon Citizen reporter Susan Bromley in her article about ET Rover:
“This is still America,” said DePalma. “They can’t come through your property if there isn’t an easement. If they have an easement, the jurisdiction is probably identical to Enbridge. Half the people who had the Enbridge pipeline running through their yards didn’t even know they had it (prior to Enbridge returning and saying they were putting a new pipeline in).”
We’re not really sure what he’s talking about with the “this is America” or the “jurisdiction” stuff, which strikes us as oddly nonsensical–and a little uninformed. Sure, pipeline companies can’t come through your property without an easement. But the whole point is that in America, those same companies are routinely granted the power of eminent domain, which means they can acquire an easement on your property whether you want them to or not.
DePalma’s last sentence is even worse– because it is mean-spirited and insulting. We have no idea what makes him think that half of landowners didn’t know about their easements; nor do we believe that it’s even remotely true. What DePalma possibly has to gain by disparaging landowners– again, many of them his very own neighbors and constituents– by implying that they’re a bunch of ignoramuses is completely beyond us. Perhaps we’re misconstruing his point here or maybe we’ve got his tone wrong. However, as we said above, he never seems to have bothered to try and understand why some landowners might be unhappy about either pipeline project.
While DePalma appears to think landowners are ignorant, Bruce Pearson thinks they’re just greedy. Here’s what Pearson told CJ Carnacchio of the Clarkston News at the ET Rover open house in Richmond:
“When Enbridge came through here, not everybody was happy until the checkbooks opened up,” Pearson said. “Then all of a sudden about 80 percent of the people, you never heard from them again.”
Honestly, we don’t know what Pearson is talking about here either. What’s strange is that Pearson himself is a landowner along Line 6B and along the proposed ET Rover route. Yet he seems to lack the imagination to understand that money might not be the only consideration for landowners. He also seems, like DePalma was with Enbridge, eager to believe whatever pleasing story Energy Transfer tells him:
In the end, Pearson believes construction of the Rover Pipeline is inevitable.
“It’s going to come through no matter what, I know that,” he said. “I don’t think (residents are) going to stop it from coming through. I don’t think there’s going to be a point where you’re going to stop the whole project.
“I think they’re just going to have to move it around and accommodate people.”
In the meantime, Pearson advised property owners who are along the proposed pipeline route to be good negotiators with ET Rover/ETP when it comes time to talk compensation.
He said the amount a person receives depends on “how tough you are.”
“They’re inconveniencing you,” Pearson said. “You take what will make you happy. Don’t worry about them. They’re billionaires. You’re not hurting them one iota.”
Things like crop damage, tree damage and loss of hunting privileges can all be factored into the compensation, according to Pearson.
“Make yourself happy because when they’re gone, they’re gone,” he said.
Pearson may or may not be right that ET Rover is inevitable; the deck is certainly stacked in favor of the pipeline company. But it’s far from a certainty. The truth is that Pearson’s position is the easy one, the complacent and compliant one, even the cynical one: just shrug your shoulders and try to get paid. Whether it’s the position of a thoughtful public steward and a courageous leader, one who cares about things other than money– things like the public interest, private property rights, and the environment– is another question altogether.
by Jeffrey Insko | Jul 23, 2014 |
Two quick items for landowners and citizens who do not want to see the ET Rover project ripping through our state and who do not want to see yet more private property taken for corporate profits:
First, Keith Matheny this week ran an excellent and very important story in the Detroit Free Press on ET’s argument to FERC just two years ago that additional natural gas supply in this region is not needed. It’s a version of the story we ran here a couple weeks ago. ET Rover appears to have no real answer to this obvious contradiction and appears to be pretending like it doesn’t exist. In our view, Matheny’s story isn’t getting nearly the kind of attention it deserves. After all, FERC is going to be persuaded to deny this application, ET Rover’s about face is in all likelihood going to be a crucial part of the argument, perhaps the most crucial part. Please share the Free Press story widely. Tell everyone about it.
Secondly, our friends over in Brandon Township are holding a citizens’ meeting for people concerned about ET Rover. This is not a company-sponsored event; it’s organized by concerned citizens and landowners. If you’re worried, please consider attending. And bring copies of the Detroit Free Press and the blog story we just mentioned. Everyone needs to know about it! The meeting is July 24 at 7 pm at the library, 304 South Street, Ortonville.
by Jeffrey Insko | Jul 17, 2014 |
Like many of you, we attended one of ET Rover’s Open Houses this week. The Fenton Township Hall was packed to bursting with concerned citizens. And what did we learn? Practically nothing. Instead of handing out helpful, specific, and detailed information, ET Rover provided landowners with t-shirts and tote bags– some of which were cleverly repurposed.
We spent some of our time, along with our friends Beth Wallace and Robert Whitesides, passing out copies of the Pipeline Safety Trust’s Landowner’s Guide, in hopes that property owners will take an active role in informing themselves of their rights and of the process for approving (or not) a natural gas pipeline project. From what we could tell, the vast majority of landowners were deeply skeptical, if not outright hostile, toward the idea of another pipeline tearing across southeastern Michigan. Of course, there was the one guy (he is inevitable) who asked us how we were going to heat our home. But since we don’t own a home in Canada, we didn’t quite understand his point.
At the meeting and since, we’ve had some conversations with some energized landowners and their neighbors about what can be done to prevent this project from happening and protect their property and the environment. We hope to collaborate with those people– that’s YOU– in the months to come. But for now, here’s a quick list of action items to consider:
Talk to your neighbors. Make new friends, get others involved. In order to influence the process, a large number of voices need to be heard. Information needs to be shared. Reach out to others, enlist them, inform them. Citizens communicating with other citizens is powerful and vital. Some of that communication is already happening here and over on our FB page. Keep it going. Share links to both.
Talk to your local officials. It’s one thing for individual landowners to protest; it’s quite another for townships, municipalities, and counties to do the same. We could have used much more of that– a half dozen or more Brandon Townships— during the Line 6B replacement. Resolutions from local governments can be very powerful.
Fire up your pens and your computers. Write letters to your local elected officials, your state and federal representatives, the governor’s office. Letters to the editor of your local newspaper can help inform your fellow citizens. Emails and phone calls to local reporters can do the same. And everyone will need to write to FERC (more on that below).
Just say no. If you are a landowner along the proposed route and are opposed to this pipeline, tell ET Rover no when they seek your permission to survey your land. That is your right. You do NOT have to allow them to conduct their survey on your property and they can’t legally do so without your permission. Refusing them access to your property will send them a clear and unequivocal message– and make it difficult for them to solidify their plans.
Contact FERC. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is the agency that oversees natural gas pipelines. ET Rover will have to file an application with FERC for this project. If approved, FERC will issue a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity, which will give ET the power of eminent domain. As part of that process, FERC collects comments from citizens. At that point, it will be crucial for as many people as possible to let the agency know their views. And in our view, the most important point to make to FERC is that, by Energy Transfer’s own admission, there is no need for this pipeline.
In addition to the above, you can inform yourself by taking advantage of the resources available from FERC and the Pipeline Safety Trust. Their Citizen Guide and Landowner’s Guide, respectively, are important resources. Even more information is available at their websites: FERC and the Pipeline Safety Trust.
by Jeffrey Insko | Jul 9, 2014 |
Energy Transfer just can’t seem to make up its mind.
Less than a year ago, ET was telling everyone, including federal regulators, that they had more pipeline capacity than they needed to serve Michigan– so much capacity, in fact, that they sought permission from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to abandon one of their natural gas pipelines. Now, not even a year later, they are preparing to ask FERC for the power of eminent domain so that they can install an even bigger pipeline into and through Michigan– and perhaps right through your property. Does that make sense to you?
Let us explain. Back in 2012, Energy Transfer applied to FERC for permission to abandon a 770-mile stretch of their Trunkline pipeline, a 30-in gas line that ran from the Gulf of Mexico to Michigan so that it could be converted to carry crude oil. This application did not please energy companies in Michigan, especially Consumers Energy. So those companies protested, as did Michigan’s elected officials, including Senators Stabenow and Levin. Even Governor Snyder and the Michigan Public Service Commission cried foul. Consumers and others worried that abandoning Trunkline– which delivered as much as 60 percent of the gas used by Consumers– would negatively affect the reliability of the state’s natural gas supply and perhaps drive up costs.
Energy Transfer adamantly (and sort of snidely) dismissed all of those concerns, including– get this– “environmental concerns… about having to build another pipeline in the future if this one is abandoned.” In fact, Energy Transfer even went so far as to cast Consumers and Michigan state officials as a bunch of hysterical Chicken Littles. That’s not a joke: they actually told FERC, in response to these protests, that “the sky is not falling.” They said a lot of over things to FERC as well, all to reassure them that abandoning Trunkline would have no effect on natural gas supplies in Michigan. For instance, they said:
• Trunkline’s natural gas delivery capacity into the state of Michigan will remain the same both before and after the proposed abandonment;
• Sufficient capacity will remain post-abandonment for Trunkline to meet all of its firm contracted-for capacity, thus ensuring continuity of service;
• No shippers will experience any change in service or harm in terms of quality of service;
In addition, Energy Transfer specifically rejected (several times) claims that “Trunkline should be required to hold unneeded capacity in the unlikely event that it may be needed at some speculative and undefined future date.”
Unsurprisingly, ET got its way in this matter. FERC approved their application to abandon Trunkline, making possible its conversion from shipping natural gas to shipping crude oil. And here’s the punch line: which oil transportation company do you suppose took over Trunkline to ship that crude oil. We’ll give you one guess….
Yep, you’re right: Enbridge. So ET gets to abandon a natural gas pipeline, making it possible for Enbridge to use the same pipeline to ship more crude (and make more money), at which point ET turns around and proposes to build a NEW, BIGGER natural gas pipeline so that they can ship more fracked natural gas through Michigan to foreign markets (and also make more money). How’s that for salt in your wound?
But the important point here is this: if ET Rover has its way, FERC will approve this new project (FERC always approves these applications) and grant them a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity. That Certificate would give ET Rover the power of eminent domain, which will mean that landowners in Michigan (and elsewhere) will not have any choice in whether or not ET Rover crosses their property. However, those same landowners will be entirely justified in wondering how FERC could possibly think that this project serves the “public necessity” not even a year after agreeing with Energy Transfer that there is no public necessity for increased natural gas capacity into Michigan.
Of course, ET is going to say that this project is just a matter of responding to their customer’s demands– and that may be true. But FERC’s charge is not to give in to every demand of natural gas developers; its charge is to determine “public necessity.” They need to be reminded of that crucial distinction. (We should also mention, because ET certainly will, that Rover is not a direct replacement of Trunkline; the routes are different. However, they serve precisely the same markets.)
So here’s what is important to take away from this:
First, this pipeline is NOT, according to ET’s own admission, a “public necessity.” It is nothing more than a land grab to allow natural gas fracked from Pennsylvania and West Virginia to pass through your property while offering you and your fellow Michigan citizens very little, if any, benefit. That gas is destined primarily for Canada. We’re just a freeway. That’s bad enough. But more importantly, the fact that FERC (and ET) already concede that that there is no need for this project should, on its own (and self-evidently; its weird that we even have to say it), preclude any approval saying there is a public need.
Secondly, Michigan elected officials, including Governor Snyder, need to be reminded of the position they took on Trunkline a year ago. That is, they should still be concerned about the environmental concerns of building a new pipeline– and they should join landowners, vocally, and publicly, in opposing ET Rover, which again, is not a project designed or projected to benefit Michigan and its citizens.
Finally, as much as landowners should make their concerns about and objections to this pipeline known to ET Rover and its representatives– at their open houses and elsewhere– the real pressure here needs to be put on FERC. Like so many other regulatory agencies, they appear to be little more than an arm of industry. However, the people need to remind them– loudly, persistently, forcefully, and repeatedly– that they work for us, the public, not for private interests.
by Jeffrey Insko | Jul 7, 2014 |
The ET Rover project is beginning to receive a fair amount of local press attention. The Clarkston News and the Brandon Citizen have run articles. We’re glad to see our old friend Susan Bromley on the case! Bromley spoke with another of our friends, Protect Our Land and Rights (POLAR) legal defense fund founder Jeff Axt. If you don’t know about Jeff and POLAR, please check them out. They’re likely to be an invaluable resource for landowners who don’t want ET Rover on their land. Please consider joining and supporting them.
Detroit Free Press reporter Keith Matheny also has an article this morning (reprinted in the Lansing State Journal). There’s not much new information coming from ET Rover on the project (more on that in a minute), but we were glad to read the remarks of two people we admire very much, Josh Mogerman and Beth Wallace:
But some don’t see the benefit for Michigan.
“It’s consistent with the growing trend nationally that puts more and more risk in people’s back yards for the movement of fossil fuels,” said Josh Mogerman, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“This project has very little benefit for Michigan,” added Beth Wallace, a board member with the nonprofit Pipeline Safety Trust.
In all of these articles, the ET Rover spokesperson quoted is Vicki Grenado. We don’t know much about her, other than that she appears not to be an ET employee, but a public relations professional hired by ET. That fact shows, as her remarks are virtually indistinguishable from the sort of stuff we’ve heard from Enbridge spokespersons for years. In one article, she even delivers this old chestnut: “We want to be a good neighbor and business partner in these communities.”
At any rate, we mention this because we happened to have our own encounter with Vicki Grenado over the weekend while trying to obtain some more information about this project. We are grateful to her for responding promptly (twice!), but the exchange was nevertheless, you might not be surprised to learn, a frustrating one– which does not bode well for landowners. Here’s how it went:
Like others of you, we’ve been trying to get some more precise information about the project and especially the proposed route. Because that information is not available on the ET Rover website, we wrote to the person listed at the site as the landowner contact. A couple of days later, we received an email from Ms. Grenado, telling us that she does not have the route information we requested and referring us to the ET Rover website for more information. That’s right: the landowner contact at ET referred us to a p.r. person who then referred us to the same website whose lack of information is what caused us to contact them in the first place.
So we replied, noting that some landowners had already been given more detailed maps of portions of the route (we posted one here just the other day). At which point, Ms Grenado simply said that maps would be available at the upcoming open houses. But of course, if we wanted to wait until the open houses to see the maps, we wouldn’t have written in the first place.
In fairness, Vicki Grenado (like all those Enbridge p.r. soldiers) is just doing her job, a job (as we’ve learned from Enbridge) that mainly consists of supplying people (landowners, local officials, the press) with as little information as possible while pretending to be helpful. However, Energy Transfer is going to need to understand that landowners in Michigan are weary of this sort of thing– and wise to it. If ET thinks they can come up here and blow a lot of smoke, provide vague or evasive answers, say a lot of pleasing-sounding things about being good neighbors, expect people to trust them and then think that landowners are just going to accept all of that without skepticism, without further questioning, without demands for more transparency, more honesty, and more openness, they’re going to have a very rough time indeed.
by Jeffrey Insko | Jul 3, 2014 |
The original letter sent to landowners by ET Rover contained a web link for more information. That link did not work. Up and running now, however, is a splashy new ET Rover web page. It’s not terribly helpful. The information it provides, including a map and a “citizens guide” is quite general and lacks detail (the Pipeline Safety Trust’s Landowner’s Guide is much more helpful, as is FERC’s citizen guide.)
But there are two interesting things to note about the ET Rover website:
First, in the list of open houses, the July 14 meeting in Fenton (according to the letter they sent) is not listed. We don’t know if this is an oversight or a change in plan. We’ll seek clarification; you should too.
Secondly, check out the “Open House Boards” at the bottom of the page. This gives some indication of how the open house will be run (or so it appears): as a series of manned stations. As we described in our post yesterday, thanks to some clever Wisconsin citizens, this is not the sort of forum that will be most advantageous to landowners. We urge our fellow landowner to ban together.
