Plans for a new natural gas pipeline through parts of southeastern Michigan face a lot of local opposition.
The ET Rover Pipeline would snake its way through more than a half dozen counties, from the Ohio border to Sarnia, Ontario. It’s part of a planned 800-mile pipeline that will stretch from Pennsylvania and West Virginia through Ohio to Michigan.
Joey Mahmoud is with Energy Transfer, a Texas-based pipeline company. He says the company’s been trying to talk with property owners.
“Some people say I haven’t been notified or I just got notified. That’s very likely,” Mahmoud told an audience during a recent town hall meeting in Holly, Michigan.
“Because as the route shifts, new land owners come in or go out of the notification. And then those letters will get there, so you’ll be notified.”
However, some people complain the pipeline builders have been trespassing on their land and violating their property rights
Ed Hennessy says he was confronted by security guards after he repeatedly told a pipeline survey crew to get off his land.
“My concern right now is the way I was treated,” says Hennessy.
Many people who attended the town hall meeting about the pipeline last week complain they are still not getting the answers and apologies they want from the company.
The company still needs federal approval for the final route of the pipeline. Construction may begin in 2016.
