REX Road Negotiations Run Rough Shod With County

Elizabeth Bailey

On January 31, 2008, Decatur County entered a roadway usage agreement with the Rockies Express Pipeline (REX) that was intended to assure that any roads damaged by the construction of the natural gas pipeline in the county would be repaired by REX or its contractors.

However, since the completion of the local section of the project, the only repairs that have been made are temporary fixes. REX had damaged portions of road, espeically on County Road 550 North, torn up and gravel placed in the roadway. The result is intermittent patches of hard gravel breaking up otherwise paved county roads, an effect that can be possibly harzardous to motorists.

In late September of this year, county officials sat down with REX to discuss the needed repairs and the costs associated. REX made an offer that failed to meet the needs of the county, but hope remained that an agreement would be reached.

The county responded by sending a pair of estimates, one at the extreme high end and the other significantly lower. The commissioners and County Highway Superintendent Mark Mohr believed that a new offer from REX would be forthcoming. However, after three weeks, this faith had begun to dwindle.

“If Rockies isn’t ineptly run, then they are trying to work us,” President of the Commissioners Jerome Buening said. “I’m tired of waiting for these guys to get some figures to us.”

On Monday morning, the commissioners were almost ready to give up on negotiations with REX and move to secure funds from the bond held to back up the agreement.

“They’ve had us on our heels and on standby for three weeks,” Highway Superintendent Mark Mohr echoed.

However, the commissioners opted to try once more to reach a settlement with the natural gas pipeline company.

At noon yesterday, the county provided REX with a firm number representing the funds necessary to repair roadway damage. At noon tomorrow, if no response has been received, action will begin towards acquiring the bond funds of $2 million, the approximate amount of damage and the total amount of the bond.

Allen Fore, REX public affairs, said the pipeline company offered Decatur County more than $900,000 initially. This was a figure that county officials found inadequate. Fore continued by saying that REX engineers had been trying to “make sense of” the reports provided by the county for the past three weeks.

“Their figures were all over the place,” he said.

Fore reported that one of the reports the county provided to REX assessed needed work at $21 million, a far cry from the initial offer. With such different estimates, Fore said, REX did not consider the previous numbers to be a formal response.

He said REX will review and respond to the county’s request now that a specific dollar amount has been proposed.

“I’m confident we’ll get to a place where we can reach an agreement,” he said.

Mohr explained that Ron May, engineer with Aecon, produced itemized listings of damage with estimates based upon an online engineering estimate database. The county also used an Indiana Department of Transportation estimate database that offers a selection of low, average and high numbers. It was from this that the highest of the figures came, Mohr explained. This high figure is far above what the county believes will be necessary to repair the damage.

The reports estimating the damage, Mohr said, were set up in the same format as those the county had received from REX. He also clarified that the very first offer from REX was around the $90,000 mark. After negotiations, the offer had reached $980,000, but that still failed to meet the needs of the county.

“We’re really trying to look out for the county residents,” he said, “and the safety of those that live or drive on those roads.”

While Fore expressed no urgency in reaching an agreement with the county, Mohr said that as of noon tomorrow, all negotiations will be over. From that point, the county will take any legal action necessary to secure the bond funds that will be needed to bring the roads up to acceptable parameters.

Difficulty in negotiations with REX regarding road repair has not been exclusive to Decatur County. According to a story published Aug. 19 in The Brookville News, REX had failed to meet with any officials in Indiana and appeared REX “is not going to honor any of its road maintenance agreements with any of the counties in Indiana.’ Officials from Johnson, Shelby and Franklin counties reported they were getting “the run around” from REX, according to the story from Brookville. In late Sept., REX offered $1.6 million to Franklin County for damages county officials had estimated at $5.5 million, The Brookville News reported.

The same woes of Decatur County officials, it seems, are being experienced elsewhere. Franklin County Highway Department District One Foreman Chester Ball echoed the sentiments of Mohr and the local commissioners in The Brookville News story published Aug. 19.

“It’s very upsetting that they’re not here,” Ball said in The Brookville News. “The engineer said he’d get back with us in one week. Now it’s three (weeks). They got what they wanted. The gas is flowing.”

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