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Texas becomes battlefield in Keystone XL pipeline fight
Dave Montgomery
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
AUSTIN — The politically volatile Keystone XL pipeline is becoming embroiled in a widening controversy in Texas as supporters tout the promise of jobs and other economic benefits while increasingly vocal opponents say the project would trample property rights and endanger water supplies in East Texas.
Although President Barack Obama rejected the application by TransCanada, the pipeline company says it plans to resubmit its proposal to transport heavy crude oil from Canada to refineries in Texas. The project holds $2 billion of economic potential for Texas, more than for any other state, according to a survey commissioned by TransCanada.
Its high-profile supporters include Gov. Rick Perry and Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, all Republicans. Perry made the pipeline an element of his failed presidential bid by blasting Obama's rejection of the application, accusing the president of squandering the chance to create jobs.
"There is not a politician in Texas in their right mind -- I don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican -- that doesn't know the importance of this to all of Texas," said Bill McCoy, president of the Greater Port Arthur Chamber of Commerce. At least two Port Arthur refineries, Motiva Enterprises and Valero, would be on the receiving end of the 1,661-mile pipeline.
Opposition campaign
But landowners, environmentalists and property rights advocates have begun stepping forward in an impassioned campaign against the 376 miles of pipeline that would stretch through 18 counties in East Texas.
Opponents accuse TransCanada of using bullying tactics to seize land rights for the project and say a spill could pollute vital water resources in drought-ridden Texas.
Sign-wielding protesters gathered outside a court hearing in Paris on Friday to support Julia Trigg Crawford in her efforts to block TransCanada from digging on a 600-acre farm that has been in her family since 1948.
Crawford, who manages the farm, says the pipeline threatens Bois d'Arc Creek, which flows through the Northeast Texas property, as well as Native American archaeological remains.
"My hope is that our state leaders will see that their landowners are being bullied," Crawford told the Star-Telegram earlier in the week.
The opposition campaign has also re-energized a property rights coalition that flexed its muscle during the last decade to upend one of Perry's most ambitious projects, the Trans-Texas Corridor.
The project was originally envisioned as a $145 billion-plus supernetwork of tollways, rails and utility lines. It dissolved after it was attacked as a land grab that would encroach on thousands of private acres. The involvement of a foreign contractor, Spain-based Cintra, further angered opponents.
"We certainly have shades of the corridor fight resurrecting themselves," said Wharton businesswoman Debra Medina, who ran against Perry in the 2010 gubernatorial race and is a leading opponent of the Keystone project.
"You've got a foreign company. You've got a private property battle. If I know Texans like I think I do, I think the landowners will win," Medina said.
The project would complement an existing TransCanada pipeline in the United States, doubling the system's total capacity to 1.1 million barrels of crude a day into U.S. markets, the company said. The 1,661-mile, 36-inch, $7 billion pipeline would start in Alberta, Canada, and stretch through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
Obama turned down the application over concerns about the route's potential impact on the environmentally sensitive Nebraska Sandhills, but he left the door open for a new application. Republicans accused the president of turning his back on a project that supporters say would create more than 100,000 jobs.
Shawn Howard, a TransCanada spokesman, said the company plans to resubmit the application to reroute the pipeline away from the sand hills, but the rest of the route, including the Texas portion, would remain the same.
Waco economist Ray Perryman, in a TransCanada-sponsored study that critics dispute, says the pipeline would create at least 50,000 jobs in Texas, by far the most of any pipeline state. Perryman also predicts $41 million in state government revenue and $7.6 million for local governments during construction.
Water worries
But many of those in or near the proposed route say the uncertainties and potential hazards outweigh the positives. In Reklaw, population 266, Mayor Harlan Crawford says fighting the pipeline has become his principal mission in a job otherwise filled with the predictable litany of small-town complaints, such as stray dogs and water problems.
The community, which Crawford, 77, describes as "just a blink in the road," was founded in 1890. Settlers wanted the name Walker but, learning that it was taken, opted for the backward spelling. Many current inhabitants are aging retirees.
After learning that the pipeline would run near the town, residents joined forces with Gallatin, another small farming community, to form the equivalent of a regional compact that would give them more power to challenge the pipeline. One big concern for the alliance is the potential contamination of the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer, which lies underneath 60 counties.
"This is some nasty stuff, and we look to get it stopped," Crawford said.
Others say TransCanada representatives also applied not-so-subtle pressure when they began acquiring access to property to build the pipeline.
"They were pushy and would intimidate you and said you had to sign this thing," said Eleanor Fairchild, who lives near Winnsboro in Wood County. Like others, she said, she "got into the fight" out of concern over possible water contamination.
"We can live without oil," she said, "but we cannot live without water."
Michael Bishop, a retired Marine who owns 20 acres in Nacogdoches County, hired an attorney to fight the project after learning that the route would cut through his orchard and garden.
"It's going to totally disrupt my life as I know it," he said. "Is it fair for a foreign-owned company to come over here and take land for their private use and their personal gain?"
Eminent domain
As with the Trans-Texas Corridor, the pipeline dispute seems certain to reopen a legislative debate over eminent domain powers, which governmental entities and so-called common carriers such as utilities and pipelines use to acquire land for public projects after compensating the owner.
TransCanada has used eminent domain to acquire a number of tracts, but critics of the company are challenging that authority, citing a 2011 Texas Supreme Court decision that makes it harder for pipelines to meet the definition of a common carrier.
Entities with eminent domain powers typically first seek to negotiate with a landowner. If they can't agree, the entity sues to take the land. The courts also appoint a three-member commission to set a price.
Howard, the TransCanada spokesman, called eminent domain proceedings "an absolute last resort" for the company and said "we do everything we can" to reach a voluntary agreement instead of going to court. He also said the company uses the property as a right of way for the pipeline and does not take ownership.
The company has obtained 99 percent of the easements needed to build the pipeline in Texas, with only 19 tracts outstanding, he said.
Medina, who now heads We Texans, a conservative advocacy group, says she has documented at least 89 lawsuits in which property owners were taken to court. She also said others have been forced to negotiate because they couldn't afford a legal battle.
To read more, visit www.star-telegram.com.
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Link to article here.
Texas farmer's battle a cause celebre for U.S. opponents of Keystone pipeline
By Sheldon Alberts, Postmedia News Washington Correspondent -- February 23, 2012
Canada.com
WASHINGTON - When Julia Trigg Crawford starred as a forward for Texas A&M University's basketball team in the 1970s, the games she relished most were the ones in which her Aggies squad was outmatched by a bigger, more powerful opponent.
``Even if you think you are going to get trounced, you still take the court,'' she said. ``Even if you are up against a Top 10 opponent, you still play to win.''
That's how Crawford, a 53-year-old farm manager in east Texas, feels about the battle she's now engaged in against Calgary-based TransCanada Corp.
As early as Friday, Crawford could learn whether a Texas court will extend a temporary restraining order blocking TransCanada from future construction of the Keystone XL pipeline across her 243-hectare farm.
The case has become the latest cause celebre for U.S. environmentalists opposed to the pipeline - and the latest headache for TransCanada as it continues to pursue approval of the $7 billion oilsands project.
President Barack Obama last month denied a permit to allow TransCanada to proceed with construction of the pipeline, which would carry 830,000 barrels per day from Hardisty, Alta. to refineries at Port Arthur, Texas.
Notwithstanding Obama's ruling, TransCanada is proceeding with efforts to establish its control over a 12-hectare section of Crawford's farm in northeast Texas's Lamar County.
The company claims it legally condemned the property under Texas eminent domain law in October 2011. Lamar County Judge Bill Harris may decide at a Friday court hearing if he will lift a Feb. 13 injunction that halts any potential construction on the land.
Crawford's only legal recourse in the case, TransCanada lawyers argue, is to accept $20,790 to cover damage to the property.
``We are not going to have one landowner hold up a multi-billion dollar project that is going to be for the benefit of the public. That is my whole argument,'' TransCanada's lawyer, James Freeman, told an earlier court hearing on Feb. 17.
``They're entitled to their day in court, but they're not going to be able to stop the pipeline project under (Texas law).''
TransCanada has some powerful allies in the fight. At last week's hearing, the company submitted letters in support of Keystone XL from Texas governor Rick Perry, Senator John Cornyn and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
The fight between Crawford and TransCanada dates to 2008, when the company first applied to build the 2,700 kilometre Keystone XL pipeline.
A section of the proposed line crosses a hay meadow on Crawford's farm, which is located along the banks of the Red River on the Texas-Oklahoma border.
Crawford and other members of her family - including her father, brother and sister - are worried about potential pollution to a creek they use to irrigate crops of soybeans, corn and wheat.
The pipeline also would run near archeological ruins from a centuries-old settlement of the Caddo Indian tribe. TransCanada and Crawford dispute whether the planned Keystone XL route would disturb historically significant artifacts.
``When they told us they found an area that was completely barren of any artifacts, frankly we figured that was a statistical improbability,'' said Crawford, whose family has owned the farm since 1948.
``We have been walking on this land for 60 years. We know on a daily basis you will look down and find things.''
The legal fight centres around TransCanada's claim it has the power to condemn private land under eminent domain laws because the pipeline is a ``common carrier'' of crude oil that would benefit the public.
A 2011 case in the Texas Supreme Court, however, brought into doubt whether it is constitutional for a private company to undertake eminent domain proceedings against landowners as a common carrier.
Terry Cunha, a TransCanada spokesman, said the eminent domain law is ``well established'' and the company follows ``the process that is set out by law in each state.''
Although TransCanada originally sought to begin work on Keystone XL across Crawford's farm as early as March 2012, Cunha said Obama's rejection of the pipeline permit has halted those plans.
``The March date was arbitrary,'' Cunha said. ``As you can appreciate, we had hoped to have the permit before the end of 2011. Without the permit, we cannot proceed with construction.''
The company's focus, he said, is on ``re-filing'' an application for Keystone XL with an alternate route that avoids the ecologically-sensitive Sand Hills region of Nebraska.
TransCanada now projects an in-service date of 2015 for Keystone XL, pending regulatory approval.
Crawford acknowledges the irony of waging a court fight with TransCanada over a pipeline that may or may not ever be built.
When Obama denied the Keystone XL pipeline permit in January, ``I got all these calls from people saying congratulations, you guys are off the hook,'' said Crawford.
``I'm like, `No we're not.' ''
Emotions around the Texas case are running high. The Feb. 17 court hearing in Paris, Texas was the site of a spirited protest that included activists from the Occupy movement as well as opponents concerned about private property rights.
As for Crawford, she was among more than 1,000 people arrested last summer during a two-week anti-pipeline sit-in outside the White House.
First and foremost, Crawford considers herself a farmer trying to protect her land.
``I'm just someone who decided to stand up and push back. We are a very proud Texas family,'' Crawford said. ``Even though I know it is just the Crawford family farm against TransCanada, it is worth taking a stand.''
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