Ohio files lawsuit against Rover pipeline
Published by Elizabeth Corner,
Senior Editor
World Pipelines,
Ohio is suing the company building a US$4.2 billion natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to Michigan over what it says are numerous water pollution violations during construction.
Rover, operated by Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), has discharged several million gallons of drilling fluid into local wetlands, among other violations, according to the state’s environmental office.
The lawsuit filed on Friday says work on the Rover Pipeline flooded a protected wetland with drilling mud and has damaged the environment in more than 10 of the 18 Ohio counties where the pipeline is being built.
The state’s EPA director claims that Energy Transfer Partners, which also operates the Dakota Access Pipeline, owes Ohio some US$2.3 million in civil fines and damages.
ETP has said it is “not responsible” for those fines, and will push forward with plans to finish the pipeline, which winds through Ohio and West Virginia before making its way to Michigan and Ontario, Canada. On Friday, the company told press in an email that “we have worked co-operatively with the Ohio EPA for the past six months to resolve this matter in a way that is satisfactory to all parties involved. We are therefore disappointed that they have resorted to litigation when Ohio EPA has acknowledged publicly that Rover has complied with all applicable environmental laws.”
“We do not anticipate that this will affect our construction timeline,” the company added.
Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/project-news/06112017/ohio-files-lawsuit-against-rover-pipeline/
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