Court orders halt on pipeline

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

A city facing long odds of stopping section of a $2 billion natural-gas pipeline from being built there was handed a victory this week when a federal appellate court issued an emergency order that temporarily halts the start of construction.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision Wednesday ruled that the city of Green, in Northeast Ohio’s Summit County, is likely to prevail in a federal petition it filed with the court last month claiming that the state Environmental Protection Agency failed to follow its own rules when it granted NEXUS Gas Transmission a clean-water certificate for the project.

Green argues that the 8-mile pipeline section could damage environmentally sensitive areas, including a bog that contains protected plant and animal species. The EPA has said in court documents that it followed its rules.

NEXUS, a partnership between Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge and Detroit’s DTE Energy, has intervened in the petition to defend the EPA. The company recently has begun construction of a 255-mile-long pipeline capable of transporting 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day from Appalachian shale fields across northern Ohio and into Michigan and Canada.

The project has received all its federal approvals but will now have to wait to do any work in Green.