A boisterous crowd of nearly 600 packed the Waterville Primary Community Room on Wednesday night for a state environmental hearing on the compressor station NEXUS Gas Transmission wants to build in Waterville Township along Moosman Drive, south of Neapolis Waterville Road.
All 450 seats were taken and well over 100 people stood in the back and along the sides of the room, which has a 680-person capacity. Nearly all available street parking within a half-mile was taken.
“We are kind of pushing the comfort of the fire marshal with the large crowd we have tonight,” the hearing moderator, Mike Settles, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency public involvement coordinator, said as he asked people to find seats when they became available.
The agency didn’t initially plan a hearing in this area, then agreed to have one after learning of the high demand for one.
The first to testify, Jim Fritz, Anthony Wayne Schools superintendent, told state and local regulators the proposed site is unacceptably close to five of the district’s six buildings, 4,000 students, and 300 staff members.
“We are concerned not only about the average amount of emissions per year, but also the peak emissions,” Mr. Fritz said.
He and others cited complaints of burning lungs, nausea, headaches, sore throats, chronic dizziness, body pain, cancer, and other health problems associated with residents who live near compressor stations.
One person who claimed to be a victim, Barry Booth, said he lives 1.5 miles from a compressor station in Carroll County, and he and his wife, Mary, drove five hours to testify.
He said gases have been so strong, you sometimes find yourself “lying on your living room floor, puking, with snot coming out of your nose.”
“These are not odors. They are volatile gases that are going to kill you, eventually,” according to Mr. Booth, whose testimony got a standing ovation from the crowd.
Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken got loud applause when he talked about a resolution he and other commissioners passed in opposition to the proposed site during Tuesday’s board meeting.
“This is what, to me, democracy looks like,” Mr. Gerken said while sizing up the audience. “We are not against clean, safe natural gas energy, as long as it’s placed in our society’s rules.”
The hearing was limited to air emissions, the only aspect of the project the Ohio EPA regulates — not the explosive risk of the compressor station or the pipeline itself, Mr. Settles said.
Several speakers said they are worried about exposure to formaldehyde, benzene, methane, carbon dioxide, and other pollutants they expect to become airborne in the Waterville-Whitehouse area if the compressor station is built at the proposed location.
“Why must this compressor station be located here?” Karen Schneider, Waterville Township trustee, asked.
NEXUS wants to build the compressor station to help move natural gas along a 255-mile pipeline it wants to build. It ultimately wants to send natural gas from the Utica and Marcellus shale regions of eastern Ohio and West Virginia to markets in Ohio, Michigan, and Canada.
So many residents wanted to speak that Mr. Settles said he wasn’t sure if the Ohio EPA could get them all in during its allotted 3½ hours. A nearby teacher’s lounge was opened as an auxiliary site for residents to give testimony.
Nobody in the audience identified himself or herself as a NEXUS spokesman. The company has said in past interviews it will consider all objections that are raised before making a final decision.
Contact Tom Henry at: thenry@theblade.com, 419-724-6079, or via Twitter @ecowriterohio.
First Published March 17, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
