More oil pipelines will come to area

From the Daily Telegram

Letter to the Editor: Friday, March 13, 2015

More oil pipelines will come to area

To the editor,

On Feb. 23, Ohio Farm Bureau Director of Energy Dale Arnold hosted a pipeline issues discussion at the Wood County fairgrounds in Ohio. Dale revealed shocking facts of our future in this region of northwest Ohio and southeastern Michigan. Wood, Fulton and Lenawee counties are ground zero for the fossil fuel industry.

Our easily Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) has led to an explosion of fracking in the Marcellus Shale region of the Eastern United States. This in turn has led to a export mania of our natural reserves to foreign markets that command prices three to four times than here in America. Increase demand will eventually raise prices for American consumers of their own natural reserves! This fact recently led 16 U.S. senators on Feb. 11 to write to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz expressing their collective concerns over the long term affects of this short term rush to exploit our finite reserves.

Exploitation is of no public good throwing into question over sized pipelines like Nexus that export over 80 percent of its natural gas to Canada. This also calls into question the misuse of eminate domain where a for-profit corporation abuses our property rights for personal gain over no public good.

Dale Arnold sees five pipeline co-corridors running 7 to 10 miles apart in our region though what I’ve coined “Pipeline Alley.” Dale knows of seven pipelines in the works with many more over the coming decades. These future pipelines will run in the new co-corridors promising unending year over year disruptions to the unlucky few that land the the first pipeline on their property. As the pipelines appear, the right-a-ways increase in size making true private property ownership a thing of the past.

One last thing for all to chew on. In 1910 Wood and Hancock Counties in Ohio were the largest oil producers in the world. Some 20,000 derricks dotted the landscape. Estimates of half the oil is still in the ground because of old technology. Now we have new technology that can extract this oil and this is coming to our region! A oil boom will increase pipelines across the region. Landowners had better check to see if they own the mineral rights to their property. If you don’t you may enjoy a oil derrick next to your house without compensation.

Five years ago it was the non-polluting windfarms now we have the toxic oil and gas profiteers. At least the wind farms would of paid the landowners a share of the profits yearly and the renewable clean energy would be used domestically.

Paul Wohlfarth

Ottawa Lake