Source: Akron Beacon Journal
A new Medina County industrial park has signed a binding agreement to get natural gas from a proposed pipeline that will cross northern Ohio.
PJS Properties will supply natural gas from the Nexus pipeline to the Brickyard Industrial Park that is planned off state Route 94 on Wadsworth’s south side. The site will be developed by construction contractor Beacon Marshall based in Bath Township.
“The Nexus pipeline will afford the Brickyard Industrial Park with critically needed access to a reliable supply of clean-burning natural gas for manufacturers and businesses to meet their energy demands,” said Phil Stone, president of PJS Properties, in a news release.
“A few years ago, I purchased a large piece of property with the intent to create an industrial park that would attract new businesses to our area, drive economic growth and create good-paying jobs. This dream will now become a reality thanks to the Nexus natural gas pipeline,” he said. “Nexus is a very important job-creating project for Medina County.”
The terms of the agreement with the Texas-based Nexus Gas Transmission LLC were not disclosed.
“We are very pleased to have the support of PJS Properties and Beacon Marshall,” said Nexus spokesman Arthur Diestel. “The Nexus Gas Transmission project will serve as a foundation for future economic growth and will support Ohio’s growing demand for clean and affordable natural gas from industrial parks such as the Brickyard,” he said.
The agreement is the first along the pipeline route to be announced by Nexus officials.
A large supply of natural gas “will allow industrial developments in Medina County to attract new manufacturers and businesses,” said Charles Marshall, CEO of Beacon Marshall.
Medina County has been overlooked in the past for new manufacturing opportunities, officials said.
“The lack of a sufficient supply of natural gas has prevented the county from competing for several large manufacturing projects in the past,” said Bethany Dentler, executive director of the Medina County Economic Development Corp.
The new pipeline “represents the kind of job-creation opportunities that we want to support and is desperately needed energy infrastructure that enables companies to locate and grow in Medina County,” she said.
The Brickyard complex is planned on nearly 300 acres that were annexed to Wadsworth from Wadsworth Township in 2014. The land is between Mount Eaton, Seville and Walls roads and the Akron-Barberton Railway.
The new pipeline would run south and west of Wadsworth; a connecting pipeline would be needed to get the natural gas from the Utica Shale in eastern Ohio to the industrial park.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is studying the Nexus proposal. Federal approval is required before the $2 billion project can proceed.
The 250-mile pipeline would run from Columbiana Ciounty to Defiance in northwest Ohio. It would then head north into Michigan and connect with existing pipelines
The pipeline would run 93.4 miles through the Akron-Canton area. It has encountered strong grass-roots opposition in Summit, Medina and Stark counties. Opponents including the city of Green and the grass-roots Coalition to Reroute Nexus are pushing to get the federal agency to reroute the pipeline to a less-populated and more rural area to the south.
The pipeline would be up to 36 inches in diameter and capable of transporting up to 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. That’s enough to heat 6 million houses. It would be buried about 3 feet deep.
The project could be approved in December 2016. Construction would take about one year and the pipeline could begin service in late 2017.
The pipeline is proposed by Houston-based Nexus Gas Transmission in collaboration with Detroit-based DTE Energy Co. and Texas-based Spectra Energy Partners.