REX Aids our Local Economy

Now I know what Allen Fore, the REX PR guy, means when he says all of the REX contractors coming into a community will add so much to the local economy. Reading this article from the Greensburg Daily News would cause me to have to question the quality of the welds on the pipeline. Too bad REX apparently doesn't require drug screening of its contractor employees. At least his significant other wants her son to only have home made meth because you never know what you might get on the street. I love a family unit with such caring adults in it. Here is the link to the article and I pasted it below:

http://www.greensburgdailynews.com/local/local_story_339192448.html

Public Awareness Nabs Meth Makers
Joe Hornaday
Greensburg Daily News
December 04, 2008 07:24 pm

A quiet room and its strange, powerful odors caused workers at a local hotel to place a call to law enforcement that resulted in the arrests of two individuals for manufacturing meth on Wednesday.

Jeff E. Adams, 47 and Cleva J. Kimbrel, 42, were arrested early in the evening by Indiana State Police (ISP) Master Trooper Chip Ayers of the meth suppression section. The two had only been in Greensburg for approximately two weeks, according to Kimbrel. Both Kimbrel and Adams were from Arkansas and staying in the city while Adams was working on the construction of Rockies Express (REX) pipeline.

Upon arriving at the scene in the hotel room, Ayers said he immediately noticed the strong smell of solvents before speaking to the occupants and searching the room.

“We found an operational meth lab inside their room,” Ayers explained.

Also within the hotel room was Kimbrel’s 17 year-old son, who Ayers said was “higher than a kite” on the drugs when he arrived. Upon further investigation, Ayers discovered that the youth had been using the drugs for some time. Previously, when his mother discovered her son’s drug abuse, she insisted that he use only the meth she created so that it was “safe” and he “would not get poisoned.” After the arrest of Kimbrel and Adams, the 17 year-old was taken out of the mother’s care and put into a temporary foster home elsewhere in the state.

All of the necessary crystal meth precursors and chemicals were found in the hotel room. Ayers said that it was clearly an active meth lab in the process of making the drug. However, it could not be determined if the batches being made were for personal use or for distribution.

Both were charged with separate counts of manufacturing methamphetamines, a Class B felony. If convicted, each could face a sentence ranging from six to 20 years.

Kimbrel and her son accompanied Adams to Greensburg, as part of Adams’ duties as a welder for the installation of the REX pipeline. That pipeline will unite Ohio to Colorado and transport natural gas. The pipeline snakes its way through several Indiana counties, including Decatur.

The arrest of Kimbrel and Adams removed two meth users from the community, and Ayers believes much of the credit for their removal goes to the public.

“Law enforcement can only do so much without the community’s help,” he said.

Often, Ayers and the meth suppression section travel to Indiana communities spreading the word on meth identification. One of the average targets for meth makers is hotels, Ayers said, which is why the meth suppression section focuses on hotel staffs and encourages them to be wary and to keep an eye open for suspicious people.

“The training of hotel employees and staff have really helped us,” Ayers said.

He added the ISP meth suppression section engages in programs with all types of groups to help curb the problem of meth addiction and distribution.

AP Article: Pipelines race out of the mountains, into yards

This AP article appeared in the Gainesville (FL) Sun newspaper. I thought it was of general interest. It mentions the John Rowe's horse farm near Dayton. Here is the link and I pasted the article below:
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081128/NEWS/811280247/&template=printpicart

Pipelines race out of the mountains; into yards
The Associated Press
Published: Friday, November 28, 2008 at 5:23 p.m.

Hannah and her father Scott McClelland stand on the top of a proposed site for a 42-inch natural gas pipeline grid across their family farm Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008 in Somerset, Ohio.

DENVER -- In the push toward more energy independence, massive infrastructure projects that will help to deliver it have clashed with cherished rights of land ownership.

Proven natural gas reserves have jumped 10 of the past 11 years, according to the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration, and thousands of miles of new pipelines have snaked in every direction.

In just the past 10 years alone, more than 20,000 miles of new natural gas pipelines have been built and brought on line. Those pipelines can carry more than 97 billion cubic feet of natural gas every day.

The owners of property over which new pipelines are planned are concerned about leaks into water and soil, land damaged by construction, land lost to a right of way and, in some cases, even loss of livelihood.

Those concerns range from a Midwestern horse farm which stands to lose grazing land, to Betty Wahle's family vineyard in Yamhill, Ore.

Her land is actually ground zero for not one, but two pipelines. The developers would dig up chunks of rich dirt and some vines that have been nurtured for more than three decades, she said.

Those vines, said Wahle, 68, would not be restored to their current state in her lifetime.

"It's just going to be devastating," she said.

The bulk of the new natural gas supply is in the energy-rich Rockies and Texas. Producers are sinking traditional oil and gas wells and drilling into coal-bed methane reserves in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. In Texas, it's the Barnett Shale, a 6,000-square-mile bedrock region of natural gas, and the Bossier Sands tight-gas formation.

Between 1998 and 2006, natural gas production in these two regions jumped 96 percent and proved natural gas reserves climbed 127 percent, government statistics show.

There are currently about 288,000 miles of gas pipelines with a capacity of 187 billion cubic feed per day.

From 2008 to 2010, about 200 projects have been proposed to add 10,100 more miles, according to the Energy Information Administration.

If all are finished, the nation's natural gas capacity will jump by more than 38 percent, the EIA said, at an overall cost of about $28 billion.

But the massive expansion comes as energy use is decreasing, which could lead to its own bust and boom cycle on prices, said E. Russell Braziel, managing director of Bentek Energy, an energy markets information company based.

"With additional infrastructure construction being completed and new projects coming online over the next few years, we expect to see significant volatility in regional price differentials for a while to come," he wrote.

The behemoth of the new pipelines is the $4 billion Rockies Express, a joint venture by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, a unit of Sempra Energy and ConocoPhillips. Construction of the 1,679-mile, 42-inch pipeline began two years ago about 160 miles northwest of Denver.

Buried under 3 to 5 feet of earth, the Rockies Express is expected to reach Clarion County, Ohio, by next summer.

The pipeline will have the capacity to move 1.8 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, and will send it to markets east of the Mississippi River.

When the massive construction project worked its way through rural, sparsely populated areas there was little protest. That has changed as it approaches more urban areas in the Midwest.

Near Lancaster, Ohio, Scott McClelland said the Rockies Express will restrict access to cattle and put a kink his children's plans to buy nearby property for another farm.

"It'll never be the same I guarantee you," he said.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved the plans, leaving McClelland resigned to the development.

"What am I going to do? I can't sit out there and fight; I've got to make a living," McClelland said.

Natural gas in the United States is plentiful, and so are its backers. They say natural gas will serve as a bridge until renewable energy technology can be developed more.

But as natural gas is shipped from West to East, the pipelines intersect with plans that people have made for their own livelihoods.

The Rockies Express will also likely cross farm where University of Dayton biology professor John Rowe and his wife, Robbie, planned to raise race horses.

The couple settled with developers on the advice of their attorney, but say it will take up to five years to rebuild pastures to grazing quality.

Rockies Express spokesman Allen Fore said they have worked with federal and state officials throughout the process and accommodated requests where they could. He said the natural gas is pressurized so it won't leak into the ground and if there is some type of impact, the pipeline shuts down automatically.

"We have made literally hundreds of adjustments, minor adjustments, to deal with landowner concerns," he said. "Most folks believe we give them a fair price. They understand the significance of this project."

Some of the projects, while less likely to play a role in someone's livelihood, can change the landscape for others.

Owners of summer homes in the Scare Canyon Ranch area are worried by El Paso Corp.'s proposed Ruby Pipeline in northeastern Utah, which would require a 150-foot wide swath of trees be cut down during construction.

Ray Gibbons, head of the canyon ranch homeowners association also said there are 22 underground springs that the association owns, which he said may be threatened by the 42-inch pipe.

"They've been pretty decent about trying to work with us but if they get FERC backing, then there will be no stopping it," he said.

On a steep hillside in northwest Oregon, the Wahle family planted their first vines in the 1970s on a 100-acre plot.

Developers have proposed routes across the property for the 220-mile, 36-inch pipeline which would connect TransCanada's system in central Oregon with NW Natural's distribution system. It is pending federal authorization.

Oregon Pipeline Co., which said it always tries to work closely with landowners, has proposed a 117-mile pipeline that also could cross the vineyard.

"They won't allow us to replant vines above the pipelines," she said. "There's very little that you could actually do with this piece of property."

Cost Overrun on REX West

REX filed with FERC today a document detailing their actual costs on REX West versus their original budget estimates. In this case, they were only over 20%, or $324,000,000. REX West was a piece of cake compared to what they have encountered on REX East, as we told FERC from the very beginning. In any case, REX/Kinder Morgan was plenty inept, even though they were collocating with other existing pipelines much of the way. At least their ROW/Damage costs were more in line. I find it interesting that their material cost was actually less than budget while it was over budget in REX East. Labor was their biggest budget buster, for some strange reason. It would seem that would be one of the easier costs to forecast. Seems kind of strange that labor was over-budget by almost $400,000,000, or almost 95%!

Here is the link to the FERC docket posting and I pasted the comparison chart below:

On 11/18/2008, the following Filing was submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Washington D.C.:

Filer: Rockies Express Pipeline LLC
No Organization Found (as Agent)
Docket(s): CP06-354-000
CP06-354-001
Filing Type: Supplemental/Additional Information
Description: Rockies Express Pipeline LLC, Statement of Actual Costs of Facilities Constructed, REX-West Project under CP06-354-000, et. al..

To view the document for this Filing, click here
http://elibrary.FERC.gov/idmws/file_list.asp?accession_num=20081118-5016

Gas Pipeline Sabotage in Canada

I have been following the press reports from Canada, in northeast British Columbia, about two gas pipeline explosions up there that have been attributed to sabotage. While the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) do not know who is behind the explosions, they are leaning towards someone with environmental concerns. Also, since the blasts have not caused significant damage, some industry people speculate they are more warnings than truly trying to cause a rupture which would be devastating. Since this is "sour" natural gas, an explosion can release a cloud of toxic gas (Hydrogen Sulfide) when it breaches containment, unlike the natural gas we will have in the REX pipeline. Thank God for small favors! But, if a nut case decides to do something like that around the high pressure REX line, the area within 2,400 to 3,000 square foot diameter (called the "thermal blast zone") would be burned by the intense heat it would generate. It would not be a pretty sight. As we all know, there will be no security along the pipeline, so it is an easy target and everyone must always be vigilant, for their own good.
Here is a link to one recent story and I pasted it below:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081019/pipeline_explosion_081019/20081019?hub=TopStories

Gas pipelines vulnerable to terrorism: expert
Updated Sun. Oct. 19 2008 10:39 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff

Two recent gas pipeline bombings in B.C. demonstrate how vulnerable Canada's energy installations are to a terror attack, a security expert says.

Explosions have damaged two EnCana pipelines over the past week, and the RCMP's anti-terror unit is investigating.

"I think that the alarm bells are going off and that is indicated by the fact that the RCMP are bringing in the people who deal with terrorism to look at this," Mercedes Stephenson, a military analyst, told CTV Newsnet Sunday.

She said that there are 2,000 wells around Calgary and most of them are unmonitored, and a easy target.

Stephenson said that the cost of protecting the pipelines would be immense and that gas companies would have feel terrorism was a significant possibility before investing in pipeline security.

"To justify that kind of cost-benefit analysis they're going to have to believe the threat is very real and long-term," she said.

Stephenson said one of the reasons there hasn't been much security invested into gas pipelines is because it's not "mass casualty terrorism."

"You don't blow up part of a pipeline and kill lots of people . . . you disrupt the economy," she said.

She said that Alberta supplies more than 90 per cent of California's natural gas supply.
"You are not disrupting just Canada but you are disrupting Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego."

Stephenson said the Alberta government could put money towards the pipelines' protection but that EnCana is ultimately the one that needs to put resources in.

"It's in everyone interests to keep our economy strong, especially in this economic downturn," she said.

The investigation

Sgt. Tim Shields said the investigation has focused on the area near the second blast, located east of Dawson Creek, near the Alberta border.

The force's explosives unit, national terrorism team and local search crews, are conducting a grid search of the area.

"We've seized a number of exhibits and it's just too early to tell if any of them will lead to something that might lead to a break in the case," Shields told The Canadian Press Sunday.
"We have to seize and analyze every piece of evidence no matter how small or insignificant it looks."

Investigators said they are interested in a truck that was spotted leaving the scene of the explosion at 6 a.m. Thursday,

There have been conflicting descriptions of the truck, Shields said.

"The explosion likely happened a number of hours before (the truck was spotted)," he said. "The description of the truck is somewhat vague ... but we're just trying to firm up exactly what type of truck that might have been before we go any further with it."

The two blasts - one last weekend and one on Wednesday - were followed by a threatening letter sent to the local media.

REX Photo Gallery from Indianapolis Star

Some of you may find this series of photos interesting. It was on line at Indy Star today. No report, just pictures around the Bainbridge Compressor Station.

http://www2.indystar.com/autofocus/galleries/show/3957/1

Promises Promises

Since everyone is ready to be graced with the presence of Rockies Express, LLC, you will probably be interested in how well they did a portion of their work in Nebraska on REX West. This link is to a TV report from station KHAS in Hastings, NE. Be sure to play the video to see how well the "restored" and cleaned up on Mr. Sack's property. Lessons to be learned to apply here! http://new.khastv.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=14591&storytopic=4


Blue Hill man not satisified with promises made to restore his land

(9/21/08) By Adam Lefkoe - The Rockies Express Pipeline West carries natural gas from Missouri to Colorado.

Everything seems to be fine underground but an area resident is upset with what is happening above it.

42 inch pipes, running right through Robert Sack's property.

“We are basically sitting on top of their pipe,” said Robert Sack of Blue Hill.

He says the pipe is not the problem; it is above ground that concerns him.

“That is not grass. They just basically pushed dirt in a hole and ran over it once with a bulldozer and said they were all done,” said Sack.

The project has been complete for almost a year. Before construction, Sack said the company that built the pipeline made promises to restore his land.

All Sack has seen is enormous weeds and severe erosion.

“And it is just about to my knees.

“They did not do anything correct. Makes you wonder if they are ever going to get it back to where it belongs,” said Sack.

Sack has kept every payment since construction began...

“That brings it close to $7,000 for just the fencing,” he said.

He said the company did pay to restore his land; it was just done poorly.

“I would like to see them do exactly what they promised,” said Sack.

He says ruined soil and cheap fences were not a part of that pledge.

“It is rotten,” he said.

Sack has had his land surveyed by numerous agencies. Soil issues alone would cost more him than $200,000.

“It is kind of heartbreaking because I spent my whole life here,” said Sack.

Sack has a meeting with pipeline officials next week. He hopes they will understand his problems and give him some honest answers.