Rover Concerns To Be Addressed

Some peo­ple who are con­cerned about the pro­posed Rover Pipeline project through north­west Ohio, are plan­ning a meet­ing for next week in Defi­ance. Accord­ing to the Cres­cent News, the ETRover com­mu­nity action meet­ing is sched­uled for Thurs­day, August 27th, from 6–8 p.m at ProMed­ica Defi­ance Regional Hos­pi­tal. Those orga­niz­ing the meet­ing say they are con­cerned about the huge high pres­sure pipelines run­ning through Ohio; the haz­ards of those pipelines; what they are really for; and the noise, air, soil and water pol­lu­tion and risks of their many com­pres­sor sta­tions. The Rover Pipeline would be built in 2016 to trans­port nat­ural gas from frack­ing oper­a­tions in east­ern Ohio to mar­kets in the Mid­west and Ontario, Canada. It would run through Defi­ance, Ful­ton and Henry coun­ties on its way to Michi­gan. A new com­pres­sor sta­tion on Ohio 66, north of Defi­ance, has also been dis­cussed. Those behind the efforts to build the pipeline, tout it’s eco­nomic ben­e­fits, say­ing it would bring in $135 mil­lion in taxes in its first year of oper­a­tion. If Rover’s sched­ule stays on track, pipeline con­struc­tion is expected to begin next year with ser­vice to the Defi­ance hub in oper­a­tion by Decem­ber 2016.