NEXUS pipeline blamed for backyard woes
Consulting, a company that represents numerous landowners along the pipeline route.
The $2.1 billion NEXUS pipeline starts near Hanoverton in Columbiana County and will connect to natural gas pipelines in Michigan. Detroit-based DTE Energy and Enbridge, a Canadian company, are partners in the 255-milelong project.
When completed, the 36-inch-diameter pipeline will carry up to 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day from the Utica and Marcellus shale regions to users in Ohio, Michigan and Canada.
The section of pipeline that crosses Clinton Road in the northeast corner of Wayne County is buried already.
After covering the pipeline, NEXUS built an earthen berm, or water break, across the pipeline right-of-way, said Austin Carani, construction manager with Central Land Consulting.
The berm diverts runoff so it won’t erode the soil covering the pipeline. The problem with the berm near Clinton Road is that it shunts water into neighboring yards, Carani said.
When it rains, a temporary stream courses through Homa’s and her neighbor’s yards. It’s why she put a French drain in her backyard, which is about 450 feet from the pipeline right-of-way.
But Homa’s next-door neighbor, Paul Nitz, who has lived in his house since 1979, said he’d never seen anything like May’s flood of mud.
A video he recorded on his phone shows the normally clear runoff turn into a brown stream that swamps his outdoor patio with water several inches deep. A little water leaked inside a basement window.
“If that window would have broke, my basement would have flooded,” Nitz said.
The water left a half-inch of mud on the patio, he said, and washed away two 40-pound sacks of mulch.
“It looked like bodies,” Homa said.
A landscaper told her it would cost more than $30,000 to fix the severely eroded lawn, a quote she sent to a NEXUS representative.
Central Land Consulting filed a complaint dated June 8 on Homa’s behalf with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
NEXUS spokesman Adam Parker responded to The Canton Repository’s questions about the Clinton Road drainage issues and landowner compensation with an email.
Since the date of Homa’s complaint, NEXUS and its regulators have looked at the area and found no compliance issues, Parker wrote. However, the company did not deny having a role in the problem.
“During the evaluation, NEXUS observed non-project related ground disturbance in the area that may have contributed to the water runoff issues in the area,” Parker wrote. “The pipe near the landowner’s property has been installed, the area has been reseeded and is in the process of being restored to pre-construction conditions.”