Rover Pipeline Owner Disputing Millions Owed After Razing Historic Ohio Home

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After taking heat last fall for destroying sacred sites of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the owner of the Dakota Access pipelineย finds itself embattled anew over the preservation of historic sites, this time inย Ohio.

Documents filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) show that Energy Transfer Partnersย is in the midst of a disputeย with the Ohio State Historic Preservation Officeย over a $1.5 million annual payment owed to the state agency as part of a five-year agreement signed inย February.

Energy Transfer Partners was set to pay the preservation office in exchange forย bulldozing theย Stoneman House, a historic home built inย 1843 in Dennison, Ohio,ย whose razingย occurred duing construction of theย Rover pipeline. Roverย is set to carry natural gas obtained via hydraulic fracturing (โ€œfrackingโ€) fromย the Utica Shale andย Marcellus Shaleย โ€” up to 14 percent of it โ€” through the state of Ohio. The pipeline ownerย initially bulldozed the historic home, located near a compressor station, without notifying FERC, as the lawย requires.

FERC provides regulatory and permitting oversight for interstate pipeline projects like Rover, and as a result, is tasked with performingย anย environmental and cultural review. Because Energy Transfer Partners didn’tย notify the commissionย of the plan to tear down the historic home, citizens and other concerned stakeholders, including the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office,ย did not have the ability to file a formal protest of theย action.

โ€œNegative Regional PRโ€

In May 2015, Energy Transfer Partners purchased the Stoneman House from theย Ohio State Historic Preservation Office for $1.3 millionย and bulldozedย it just two weeks later, according to FERC documents. The $1.5 million annual payment owed to the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office was in addition to the initial cost ofย purchasingย theย home.

The annual paymentsย were supposed to go towardย history education programs administered by the office, as agreed upon byย FERC, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Energy Transfer Partners, and theย Ohio State Historic Preservationย Office.


Credit: U.S. Federal Energy Regulatoryย Commission

In a March 2015 email, an Energy Transfer Partners employee, whose name is redacted in a filing docketed with FERC, acknowledged that bulldozing the home could create โ€œnegative regional PR.โ€

โ€œI agree that tearing down the house could be a politically risky strategy,โ€ wrote the official. โ€œ[I]t may negatively affect the relationships with our reviewers and possibly result in some negative regional PR. We also told FERC that we would work with the [State Historic Preservation Office] to get to a place where there was no adverseย effect.โ€

Asking for Disputeย Resolution

In the past few weeks, FERC, Energy Transfer Partners, andย the Ohio State Historic Preservation Officeย have exchanged several letters related toย the conflict over payment owed for razing the Stoneman House, which the parties agreed upon in the Memorandum ofย Agreement.

Onย April 28,ย Lox Logan Jr.,ย executive director and CEO of the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office, requestedย that FERC help with formal dispute resolution over theย issue.

โ€œThe Ohio State Historic Preservation Office has been in repeated contact with representatives from Rover LLC regarding the fulfillmentโ€ of the monetary commitments outlined in the Memorandum of Agreement [MOA], wrote Logan. โ€œAs of this date, no efforts have been made to meet those obligations. As the lead federal agency with jurisdiction over this undertaking, we are notifying you of thisย dispute.โ€

William Scherman, an attorney for the firmย Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, currentlyย is serving as legal counsel to Energy Transfer Partnersย andย sentย his own letter,ย which Energy Transfer Partners provided to DeSmog, to FERC on May 10.ย The letter also requested that FERC step in to resolve the dispute. Schermanย previously served as FERC general counsel and chief of staff under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W.ย Bush.

โ€œCertain facts regarding the generation and completion of the MOA and the handling of the mitigation monetary provision were misleading and in error, and therefore we do believe that there is an impasse to resolution at this time,โ€ wroteย Scherman. โ€œRover believes any additional contribution is unwarranted and unfair, and Roverย is willing to vigorously defend itself against any attempts to leverage any additionalย contribution.โ€

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher is a firm best known for providing legal counsel to Chevron in the ongoing litigation between attorney Steven Donziger and indigenous plaintiffs in Ecuador against Chevron. That lawsuit and complex litigation battle, which has now dragged on for nearly 25ย years, centers around the legacy of oil pollution and contamination in theย country.

FERC, in turn, responded on May 17 to the letters from the Preservation Office and Energy Transfer Partners,ย giving them a three-week dispute resolutionย period.ย 

โ€œIf this dispute is not resolved by the end of that period, Commission staff will provide its recommended final decision on the dispute, along with all documentation it deems relevant to the dispute, to the [Advisory Council on Historic Preservation] for its review and comment,โ€ reads the FERC letter.


Credit: U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commissionย | Sherryย Miller

A spokesperson for Energy Transfer Partners told DeSmog that it will โ€œdecline to comment as we continue to work with all partiesโ€ on resolving theย issue.ย 

โ€œFERC has responded to our letter. Weโ€™re entering into dispute resolution with FERC at this time,โ€ Emmy Beach, public relations manager for the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office, told DeSmog. โ€œAt this point, the matter is up to FERC to decide what happensย next.โ€

For its part, Energy Transfer Partners has given a blanket $2.3 million payment which would go toward the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office and $1 million of it will go directly to all the 18 counties through which Rover crosses. The other $1.3 million will go toward historic preservation efforts statewide in Ohio.**

**Update: An earlier version of this article referred to a $2.3 million offer given to theย Ohio State Historic Preservation Office. The money, in actuality, has already exchanged hands and has been given to the Historic Preservationย Office.

โ€œWhat remains in discussions with the Ohio SHPO office and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are requested contributions in addition to the more than $2.3 million the state received in 2016,โ€ explained Energy Transfer Partners spokeswoman, Vicki Granado. โ€œWe will continue to work with the FERC and the Ohio SHPO in order to resolve any outstandingย issues.โ€

Main image:ย Rover pipeline construction in Sherrodsville, Ohio.ย Credit: Sherryย Miller

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Steve Horn is the owner of the consultancy Horn Communications & Research Services, which provides public relations, content writing, and investigative research work products to a wide range of nonprofit and for-profit clients across the world. He is an investigative reporter on the climate beat for over a decade and former Research Fellow for DeSmog.

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