County board won’t allow pipeline
PRINCETON —No, you may not build an above-ground fuel pipeline 368 feet from a Bureau County resident’s home.
That’s what the Bureau County Board told Kinder Morgan Cochin, LLC, a Texas-based firm who asked the board Tuesday for a permit to build an above-ground petroleum transfer station less than 500 feet from two homes on 2750 East Street in rural LaMoille.
The board denied the group’s conditional use request by a vote of 17-8. The denial came after hearing recommendations from several county subcommittees, including the planning commission, the zoning board of appeals and the zoning committee which had pushed the request forward.
KMC had planned to use the station to link two existing underground pipelines which provide petroleum products to customers throughout the Midwest, the request said. Both are underground lines. The transfer station plan includes a 25-foot flare stack, a 400-square-foot control building, a light tower with security cameras and a wire fence.
“It looks like a prison fence, I’m afraid,” Larry Forristall said, describing part of KMC’s proposed transfer station.
Forristall said he understands the flare stack sometimes shoots flames into the air for more than an hour at a time.
Forristall, who owns residential property at 27167 East 2750 Road, just south of the proposed site, urged the board Tuesday to vote against KMC’s request.
Forristall isn’t opposed to KMC building a transfer station but argued the station’s proximity to his home would damage the value of his and others’ properties. Forristall gave the county board a map that shows his neighbors Greg Fischer and Tom Weeks both live less than 500 feet from the proposed site.
Fischer’s property is 368 feet from the proposed station, according to KMC measurements.
“The three property owners who live closest to it all say, ‘Just move it away from us a
little bit, a quarter mile, and we’re fine with that,’” board member Rick Wilkin told the BCR after Tuesday’s meeting. “Put it out in the middle of the field. Take it west or north to (Route) 92.”
“If this is commercially viable, what difference does it make? Putting a few more bucks into it is not going to change we that,” Forristall told the board.
Wilkin, who opposed the KMC permit request Tuesday, said it’s a safety risk to have a fuel transfer station with a flare stack sitting so close to peoples’ homes.
According to KMC project supervisor Joe Mach, Kinder Morgan is a common carrier who services 35,000 miles of pipeline throughout North America. He told the board KMC has owned and operated pipelines in Bureau County for more than 30 years without a “problem.”
Mach said KMC would do landscaping to make the fuel transfer station less obtrusive and showed the board pictures of homes and churches that have been built right next to other transfer stations.
But Wilkin showed board members statistics which he said suggest Kinder Morgan has a spotty safety record. According to Wilkin, in each of the last six years, the company has had injuries, deaths other “major incidents” resulting from accidents around pipeline construction sites.
Bob Russell, who represents KMC, accused Wilkin and other board members and local residents who opposed the permit request of “throwing dust in the air,” and spreading “unsubstantiated innuendo.”
At one point in the meeting, after Wilkin had asked developers a barrage of questions about stress cracks which he’d read develop in KMC’s fuel pipes, Russell said, “You’re just pulling stuff out of the air, come on.”
The majority of the county board apparently didn’t agree, though. Board member Steve Sondgeroth made a motion for a moratorium on developments which involve flame stacks, pushing to shelf the request until the board could give more consideration to rural road use and property setbacks for fuel transfer stations.
Sondgeroth withdrew that motion after Bureau County State’s Attorney Pat Herrmann told him KMC’s request had reached full board review under a specific set of legal parameters, and that it would be unlawful to establish a moratorium for the purpose of altering those parameters.
Instead, Wilkin made a motion to deny the permit, and the board voted overwhelmingly to kill KMC’s proposal, at least at the East 2750 Road location.
After Tuesday’s meeting, Wilkin told the BCR after he’s amenable to KMC putting the transfer station somewhere else, even though some of the residents suggested alternate sites could put the station as close as 700 feet from other peoples’ homes.
“Somebody might object again in those other locations, but at least it’s not going to be right on top of the homeowners,” he said.
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