December 6, 2013

The 47th Annual Meeting of the ND Township Officers Association took place in Minot this week Monday and Tuesday despite some rather unfavorable weather. Nonetheless, township officers from 27 of the state's counties gathered to discuss issues pertaining to townships.

On the first day of the two day meeting, ND Tax Commissioner Cory Fong was scheduled to present to the group but was unable to attend due to the winter weather. In order to fill in the gap in the schedule, NDAOGPC Deputy Director Brady Pelton talked about work the Association is doing in western North Dakota. Pelton spoke of the many Association projects, including past population estimate studies, the Vision West ND regional planning project, and an EMS coverage study. He also talked about the Association's Uniform County Truck Permit System, which provides an efficient method for overweight/oversized truck loads to operate on county roads. Overweight and oversized loads, he said, pay a fee to use those local roads, which the county retains to put toward road maintenance. Pelton explained that it had been suggested that the Association permit system take on township roads as well to make it easier for both the oil and gas industry and local township officials in dealing with increased usage of those township roads.

Also speaking to the group during the meeting were representatives of Enbridge Pipelines who gave an update on the Sandpiper Pipeline Project, a nearly 610-mile interstate pipeline that will stretch from the Enbridge Beaver Lodge Station south of Tioga to a terminal in Superior, Wisconsin. Much of the pipeline, which will be dedicated to transporting North Dakota's Bakken crude oil, will generally follow Enbridge's existing pipeline or other utility rights-of-way the the state. The pipeline, they said, will have several benefits to the area around the pipeline corridor. It will take trucks off local roads, alleviate the strain on local infrastructure, and pay over $4 million in property taxes. On a broader level, they said, the pipeline will increase the nation's access to an affordable, dependable energy source and allow for growing production in the Bakken.

Safety, the representatives said, is a top priority for this project. Three full scale safety exercises took place this year, and seven are planned for next year. The safety exercises prepare Enbridge personnel as well as local first responders and emergency service personnel for situations that could arise along the pipeline corridor. Additionally, Enbridge plans to use "smart pigs", which will periodically inspect the inside of the pipeline, and will conduct 24-hour pipeline monitoring of pipeline pressures and conditions during operation. Enbridge's control center has remote shut-down capabilities that would be used to immediately cease the flow of oil should the need occur. Both ground and aerial inspections of the pipeline right-of-way would also take place regularly. More information on the Sandpiper Pipeline Project can be found at www.enbridge.com/SandpiperProject.

For more information on the Sandpiper Project, you can also check out the Minot Daily News article coverage of the issue.