ART HOVEY / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Saturday, April 1, 2006 6:00 pm
Dale Rocker compares the news that his Seward County land is in the path of a proposed petroleum pipeline to the onset of the common cold.
“You know you’re going to get it,” Rocker said, “so you just deal with it.”
The construction phase of a project that got the green light in February will bury some 1,000 miles of 30-inch pipe four feet below the surface and southward from the Canadian border. The date for digging is still two years away.
But officials from TransCanada Corp. will be in Nebraska this week to follow up on letters they sent to Dale and Sandi Rocker and about 1,000 other people whose land is on the preliminary pipeline path or immediately adjacent to it.
Dale Rocker, who lives about 3 miles west of Seward, plans to attend a local meeting about the details at the Seward Civic Center Tuesday.
As a retired farmer, Rocker isn’t especially concerned about disruptions in his cornfields in 2008. That will be more of a concern for his renter.
But he suspects he’s in for a slight decline in the market value of his property and he’s been thinking about the impact a pipeline rupture would have in an area where the water table is above the trench depth in some places.
“A three-foot in diameter pipe, even if the pump stopped immediately, you could have a lot of oil on the ground and contaminate a lot of ground,” he said. “We have to know that they’re going to take care of that.”
In an earlier Journal Star story, TransCanada’s Jennifer Varey said the company, based in Calgary, Alberta, has an exemplary safety record.
In an interview for this story, Varey was not quite ready to identify as final a proposed pipeline route that has already been pushed westward from Iowa into Nebraska.
Nor would she shed much light on what landowners would be paid for 110-foot construction easements or 60-foot permanent easements.
“That will be something that will be subject to discussion between TransCanada and individual landowners,” she said.
While some sift through the downside, others are looking at the possibilities for cashing in on a $284 million investment on Nebraska turf and on personal property tax revenue that is expected to generate $5.2 million for 10 Nebraska counties in the first year of pipeline operation.
Among them is Alan Ehlers, superintendent of a Dorchester school district that is in serious enough budget straits to require a slight staff reduction next school year.
“I’m aware of the situation,” Ehlers said of the pipeline, “and I guess, at this point, we’ll just have to see how everything pans out.
“I’m not getting too excited, at this point,” he added, “but if it does come, it will definitely help our school district out.”
There might even be the chance of pipeline maintenance people living in the Dorchester area, he said.
“I hope it will be a good impact for our school district. Anytime something positive happens, we’ll take that in stride.”
Joe Ruzicka, chairman of the Seward County commissioners, met with a TransCanada representative about two weeks ago and came away thinking the county was gaining something.
“It will help our tax base and it won’t be that detrimental,” Ruzicka said. Once the disruptions of installation are past, “it’s a plus for us and down the road it might open some other doors, like processing oil and stuff like that.”
Has he heard any resistant voices in the community?
“No, not really. People were a little concerned about it, but that was because they thought the pipeline would be above ground. Once they found out it would be buried, there wasn’t that much concern about it.”
TransCanada hosted meetings in South Dakota last week like those set for the Nebraska side of the border this week.
Emery, S.D., farmer Glen Lubbers was one of about 100 people to attend a meeting in Alexandria.
At this point, the pipeline is scheduled to go through Lubbers’ pasture. But he isn’t regarding that as a done deal.
“It’s been moved once already,” he said. “It was east of our place 5 or 6 miles further. They moved it this way. I don’t know why. They call it proposed. They’re not sure yet.”
Hearing that the pipe would be half-inch thick steel gives Lubbers some comfort about the possibilities of a break in the line.
On a more personal matter, “I couldn’t get a price out of them.”
While TransCanada’s Varey steers clear of that point, she speaks authoritatively about construction challenges as substantial as burrowing under the Platte River and Interstate 80.
“Certainly, in 50 years of building pipelines, we’ve gone under lots of rivers and through lots of difficult terrain,” she said.
A joking reference to the absence of grizzly bears in Nebraska generates a serious reply. They are apparently among the potential hazards of the Canadian phase of building the pipeline.
Their presence and absence will be monitored, Varey said: “Grizzly bears, any aspect of construction.”
Reach Art Hovey at (402) 523-4949 or ahovey@alltel.net.