Natural gas pipeline upsets Michigan residents

A mega-project natural gas pipeline, proposed to pass through Michigan heading to Ontario, upsets Michigan residents, who fear that their properties will be torn up again as it happened with the Line 6B about a year ago. Despite the construction company's estimates of thousands of new temporary as well as permanent jobs and tax revenue benefits, locals strongly oppose the pipeline construction perspective.

The new gas pipeline is proposed by ET Rover Pipeline, a sister company of Energy Transfer Partners, and is in a pre-filing stage with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The pipeline, which is planned to partially follow the Line 6B route (across the Lower Peninsula) is expected to carry more than 3 billion cubic feet of gas on a daily basis and will probably need local level permissions for increased road use and other activities. According to the company, 5,000 temporary construction jobs will be created, as well as 30 - 40 permanent ones upon the project's completion. Additionally, ET Rover spokesman Vicki Granado estimates that $88.7 million will end up in all involved states' cashiers, in the form of taxes.

However, residents of Oakland County have already seen their properties and lives being disrupted last year, from the Line 6B pipeline of the Enbridge Canadian oil transport company. Jeffrey Insko, Oakland County resident, whose property was affected by the Line 6B pipeline, maintains a blog on the subject and stresses out the "demoralizing prospect of having people's lives disrupted and their property torn up again when it hasn't even been fully restored". Among the opposing voices, Beth Wallace, a board member with the nonprofit Pipeline Safety Trust, indicates that "Michigan is becoming yet another highway for export pipelines, at the expense of our environment and homeowners living along the proposed right-of-way," and proposes a different strategy for the state Michigan, including "focusing on existing infrastructure needs and increasing renewable energy production".