The city of Bowling Green consented to Nexus Gas Transmission LLC’s immediate possession of city-owned land. While Nexus’ eminent domain rights make its pipeline nearly irrepressible, there are activists who see a way to stop it.

    City attorney Michael Marsh submitted an answer to the northern district court of Ohio on Oct. 11 in response to Nexus’ eminent domain rights over 1.5 acres of farm land in Middleton Township on the pipeline’s planned construction route. The answer says the city admits to Nexus’ rights and will not contest them.

    Nexus has offered $79,360 to the city for the land.

    “The answer does not deny that Nexus has been granted eminent domain status by the state and that they’re going to be entitled to possession of that property,” Marsh said. “That’s what that answer does. It doesn’t give them an easement and doesn’t say we’re going to accept money.”

    The judge has not yet officially signed an order to allow Nexus to have the properties along its projected route.

    Marsh says Nexus’ state granted right to eminent domain land renders local legal power useless against influencing the pipeline’s construction.

    “This summer, once the state decided that Nexus was a public utility and was entitled to eminent domain rights, this was really all over,” Marsh said. “Nexus has sued hundreds of parties, and a good half of them have already settled in the months they have been filed. Almost everybody involved in this understands that this is about money. This isn’t really about stopping any pipeline.”

    Despite Nexus’ legal power, local environmental activists are not content with how the city has been handling the Nexus pipeline issue, and they see a solution.

    “Mike Marsh silently signed away the city’s easement rights to Nexus pipeline,” Bowling Green resident Lisa Kochheiser said. “The city has betrayed citizens’ trust and has scandalously kept it to themselves.”

    During an Oct. 16 city council meeting, Marsh did not address the answer and consent to Nexus.

    Pipeline pponents are upset with how its construction has been shrouded in secrecy.

    “The city’s administration kept the pipeline’s close proximity to the Water Treatment Facility a secret for two years,” Kochheiser said.

    The University’s Environmental Action Group president, Brad Holmes, says the Bowling Green charter amendment is a solution to limiting the construction of fossil fuel infrastructure in the city.

    “It’s one thing to rely on our city leaders to protect us, and it’s another to watch them fail to do so,” Holmes said.

    The city of Waterville, which passed a charter amendment that prohibits the construction of pipelines last year, has currently not consented to Nexus’ eminent domain rights and is fighting having it cross through city-owned land.

    “Waterville, on Oct. 25, filed a 12-page answer, claiming that their local charter amendment forbids them from consenting and that Nexus cannot cross the city,” legal counsel attorney for the Bowling Green charter amendment group, Terry Lodge, said.

    Whether Waterville’s charter will possess the legal standing to successfully resist the pipeline has yet to be determined, but for now they have banned Nexus’ building actions.