OHIO — Work crews are carving a path for the NEXUS Gas Transmission pipeline through Stark County’s fields and woods.
In recent weeks, workers have cleared trees, installed signs and prepared construction areas throughout Lake, Marlboro, Nimishillen and Washington townships.
Project activities will continue until the pipeline is placed into service in the third quarter of 2018, NEXUS spokesman Adam Parker wrote in an email.
The 255-mile NEXUS pipeline starts near Hanoverton in Columbiana County and will connect to existing natural gas pipelines in Michigan.
Work on the project is divided into four zones, or spreads. Stark is in Spread 1, which stretches 54 miles from Hanoverton to Doylestown in Wayne County.
As of Dec. 15, 36 percent of Spread 1 had been cleared of trees, according to the latest update filed by NEXUS with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Tree cutting was visible in Washington Township east of Parks Avenue NE, and piles of cut trees were being collected at the corner of Beech Street and Beechwood Avenue NE last week.
NEXUS told FERC that crews working on Spread 1 would continue to install access pads, post signs and clear trees last week, except within the city of Green.
A federal appeals court in Cincinnati stopped work on an 8-mile segment of the pipeline in Green on Nov. 22 while the city challenges a construction permit issued by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
Pipeline construction was most advanced along Spread 4, the part of the pipeline in Michigan, where workers had already started welding pipe and burying it in the ground.
Detroit-based DTE Energy and Enbridge, a Canadian company, are partners in the $2.1 billion NEXUS project.
When completed, the 36-inch diameter pipeline will carry up to 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day from the Utica and Marcellus shales to users in Ohio, Michigan and Canada.
Shane Hoover is a staff writer for The Canton Repository.