The Associated Press

CIRCLEVILLE – A judge has ruled in favor of landowners trying to block plans for a petroleum pipeline between West Virginia and central Ohio.

Tuesday, July 18, 2000

CIRCLEVILLE – A judge has ruled in favor of landowners trying to block plans for a petroleum pipeline between West Virginia and central Ohio.

Judge P. Randall Knece agreed with landowners that Marathon Ashland Petroleum doesn’t have the right to build the pipeline through their property.

Marathon Ashland sued landowners who refused to grant an easement for the 130-mile pipeline that would carry diesel fuel, jet fuel and other products from Kenova, W.Va., to Columbus.

The company has acquired 88 percent of the right of way it needs for the project, spokesman Chuck Rice said Monday.

Knece of Pickaway County Common Pleas Court ruled late last week that Ohio law doesn’t allow Marathon Ashland to use eminent domain to get access to the rest of the land.

Knece also ruled that Ohio law allows the use of eminent domain only to build pipelines that transport petroleum. Marathon Ashland’s pipeline would carry processed products.

The judge noted that Marathon Ashland is free to negotiate with the holdouts.

”This court will not, however, permit (the company) to use the extraordinary power of eminent domain to force unwilling landowners to encumber their real property with a pipeline built to transport finished products that have alternative means of transportation,” the judge ruled.

Rice said the ruling was unfortunate.

The pipeline ”really could help everyone by providing another avenue of supply to the ever-growing central Ohio market,” he said.

A lawyer for the landowners didn’t immediately return a phone call.

One of the landowners, Betty Gutheil, has rejected the company’s offer for the right of way across her 275-acre farm in northern Pickaway County in south-central Ohio.