Ohio judge rules pipeline builder lacks rights to property

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio judge has ruled that a company seeking to build an ethane pipeline across Ohio for a Canadian company doesn’t have the right to acquire property through eminent domain.

The Blade newspaper in Toledo reports Wood County Common Pleas Court Judge Robert Pollex’s ruling this week could hinder Pennsylvania-based Kinder Morgan’s plans to build a 12-inch pipeline from eastern Ohio shale fields across the state to an existing Michigan pipeline that ends at a Windsor, Ontario, chemical plant.

Kinder Morgan had sued Wood County property owners to obtain paid easements to their land. Ethane is a byproduct from natural gas drilling that’s used to produce plastics.

Pollex says forcing property owners to grant easements would violate their constitutional rights.

Kinder Morgan filed an appeal Friday with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.