MEDINA – Plans to build the NEXUS gas transmission pipeline reached a critical milestone when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reported there are no major environmental issues preventing its construction.

The announcement came in the form of FERC’s 541-page final environmental impact statement released Nov. 30 and should clear the way for work to begin on the $2 billion pipeline as planned in early 2017.

In its long-awaited report, FERC concluded the pipeline and its associated projects will “result in some adverse environmental impacts.” But the regulatory commission, which oversees interstate pipeline projects, said those impacts will “be reduced to acceptable levels with the implementation of proposed mitigation measures and the additional measures recommended by staff in the final (environmental impact statement).”

Pipeline spokesman Adam Parker said, “NEXUS has been evaluating proposed routes, design and construction methods and potential impacts on community members and the environment since August 2014. More than two years of discussions, surveys, studies, permitting and planning has developed a balanced plan for the route, construction techniques, and measures to avoid, minimize or mitigate impacts. Overall, FERC has responded to concerns raised by stakeholders and found that the NEXUS project will not have a significant adverse effect on local communities.”

Vocal opponents of the pipeline project are not happy with the FERC recommendation even though it came as no surprise.

“FERC released their report Nov. 30 just as they said they would months ago,” said Paul Gierosky, a spokesman for the opposition group Coalition to Reroute NEXUS. “I don’t think FERC gave any serious consideration to the alternative routes we proposed.”

However, Parker said FERC evaluated 15 major route alternatives to the proposed pipeline route, which included three versions of the City of Green Route Alternative, and found NEXUS’s proposed route acceptable.

“During project planning, NEXUS incorporated many route alternatives and variations into its original route,” Parker said. “In total, NEXUS adopted a total of 239 route changes totaling about 231 miles for various reasons, including landowner requests, avoidance of sensitive resources or engineering considerations.”

Among those recommended route changes is one that avoids environmentally sensitive areas near Chippewa Lake. FERC staff members proposed an alternative route which would deviate from the original proposed route just west of where it crosses Interstate 71 and then head northwest for about six miles across a longer section of Montville Township than originally planned. The new route crosses Wooster Pike near Chippewa Road in Montville Township and then cuts across Wedgewood Road near the Medina County University Center and Buckeye Woods Park in Lafayette Township.

The NEXUS project consists of 256 miles of new, 36-inch pipeline laid to move natural gas fracked from the Marcellus and Utica shale regions of southern and eastern Ohio to markets in the United States and southwestern Ontario. It passes through Wadsworth, Guilford, Montville, Lafayette, York and Litchfield townships.

Gierosky said his group and others will continue their opposition to the pipeline despite the FERC recommendation that the project proceed. Some of their focus will shift to FERC which he called a “tyrannical bureaucracy captured by the pipeline industry.”

Gierosky and dozens of others representing pipeline opposition groups from around the country were scheduled to speak about FERC abuses of power Dec. 2 at a forum in Washington D.C. organized by several environmental groups.

Gierosky also said groups he is associated with plan to file a lawsuit in federal court to stop construction of the NEXUS Pipeline. A central argument in their case will be to challenge the right of a foreign company to use eminent domain for a private project that will sell its product outside the country.

Gierosky’s argument is that one of the partner companies developing the NEXUS Pipeline, Spectra Energy, is being acquired by the Canadian company Embridge Inc.