County agrees to deal for oil pumping facility
Facing an all-or-nothing showdown in federal court later this week, McHenry County officials instead struck a deal Monday with a Canadian pipeline operation allowing the company to go forward with plans for a controversial oil pumping station.
The agreement, filed in U.S. District Court Monday, ends what appeared to be a no-win situation for the county that began last month when the county board refused to grant Calgary-based Enbridge Energy Co. a permit for its proposed pumping station.
"We felt we were in a situation where he might spend lots of money to fight a battle we could not win," First Assistant McHenry County State's Attorney Thomas Carroll said Monday. "We brought on outside counsel, environmental experts, on this and they advised us that this was the best result we could expect."
Under terms of the deal, the county will allow Enbridge to build the facility on its 21-acre site west of Woodstock, in rural Seneca Township. In return, Enbridge agrees to install additional safety features, including containment measures that could handle an oil spill of more than 60,000 barrels and a complete enclosure around the pumping station.
Had the county gone to court Thursday and lost, Carroll said, it is possible Enbridge could build the facility without the extra safety measures.
"It was an all-or-nothing situation," he said.
Enbridge officials said they need the pumping station to increase capacity along an existing pipeline that carries crude oil from Canada through McHenry County to refineries south of Chicago.
The plan was met with strong opposition from neighboring property owners, who feared the pumping station would increase the chances of a pipeline disaster that would spill oil into the soil and local water supplies.
After the county board voted 13-9 last month against granting a permit for the proposal, Enbridge sued, alleging board members acted outside their authority by denying them over safety concerns. Safety issues with pipelines, the company said, is the jurisdiction of federal, not local, authorities.