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TransCanada pipeline hits Oklahoma roadblock
News Articles | Calgary Sun | January 17, 2011
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TransCanada’s proposed Keystone pipeline has hit a legal roadblock in the ranchlands of Oklahoma on its way from the Alberta oilsands to the refinery belt on the Texas Gulf Coast.
“I just don’t think it’s right for a foreign company to come in and condemn my land,” said Doris Lynn, one of 12 defendants named in a court case against the U.S. subsidiary of Calgary-based pipeline company TransCanada. “It don’t benefit us. It benefits them.”
Lynn and her husband live on a 180-acre piece of land in Oklahoma that lies in the proposed path of TransCanada’s extension to its Keystone oil pipeline. The land is uncultivated and used for grazing cattle. TransCanada wants to use a small part of it for the pipeline’s right-of-way, or easement, but Lynn refused.
Now, TransCanada is seeking to expropriate the piece of land by exercising eminent domain. This means TransCanada is trying to get the right to use the slice of Lynn’s property because there’s a public benefit to be gained from building the pipeline.
According to Lynn’s lawyer, Harlan Hentges, such a move by a foreign company violates the U.S. Constitution. Foreign companies, he said, can’t use the power of eminent domain, even if delegated by the state.
Also, Hentges said that because the pipeline will ship bitumen from Alberta to Texas, there’s no benefit to the states along its route.
“So it’s not providing a public benefit for any of the states through which it passes, or developing any natural resources in those states, or being a common carrier. So there is not a public benefit that TransCanada has stated that is relevant to their power of eminent domain, or the statutes that they’re proceeding under.”
TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha said the company has done “everything reasonable to avoid using eminent domain,” including offering “more than full market value for the land.”
He’s also pointing to TransCanada’s negotiations in other states.
“With more than 99% of all easements successfully negotiated with hundreds of landowners in seven states so far, it’s clear Keystone is responsive to landowner concerns, and apparently is addressing them to their satisfaction,” he said.
Hentges, meanwhile, said that although he’s not sure how long the it may take before the court case is resolved, he said it could take some time.
markus.ermisch@sunmedia.ca
Tagged with: transcanada, pipeline, keystone, eminent domain, oklahoma
