Keystone XL Pipeline

[Conan71]

While I don't agree with the apparent thuggery here, Trans-Canada is in a difficult position and who knows for sure how close these people are coming to the pipeline ROW. 

It's a construction area.  Wander onto any active construction site and expect to be detained or chased off.  For one reason there is a liability issue when it comes to safety, secondly a company has a right to protect itself from it's work being impeded.  This particular site is additionally on the lookout for vandalism.

Naturally Trans-Canada is being made to look like the bad guy because of the actions of some over-zealous local constables.

Second Barney in a week

[nathanm]

I'm being a bit of a pedant, but an easement and a right of way are different things.

[Conan71]

I'm being a bit of a pedant, but an easement and a right of way are different things.

It's okay, I'm used to it. 

[patric]

Naturally Trans-Canada is being made to look like the bad guy because of the actions of some over-zealous local constables.

Being rural Texans, I'm surprised they haven't called in their own "private security force" to patrol their property from carpetbaggers.

[Conan71]

Being rural Texans, I'm surprised they haven't called in their own "private security force" to patrol their property from carpetbaggers.

? ? ?

[Townsend]

Texas landowners take a rare stand against Big Oil

http://news.yahoo.com/texas-landowners-rare-stand-against-big-oil-115049121--finance.html

SUMNER, Texas (AP) — Oil has long lived in harmony with farmland and cattle across the Texas landscape, a symbiosis nurtured by generations and built on an unspoken honor code that allowed agriculture to thrive while oil was extracted.

Proud Texans have long welcomed the industry because of the cash it brings to sustain agriculture, but also see its presence as part of their patriotic duty to help wean the United States off "foreign" oil. So the answer to companies that wanted to build pipelines has usually been simple: Yes.

Enter TransCanada.

As the company pursues construction of a 1,179-mile-long cross-country pipeline meant to bring Canadian tar sands oil to South Texas refineries, it's finding opposition in the unlikeliest of places: oil-friendly Texas, a state that has more pipelines snaking through the ground than any other.

In the minds of some landowners approached by TransCanada for land, the company has broken the code.

Nearly half the steel TransCanada is using is not American-made and the company won't promise to use local workers exclusively; it can't guarantee the oil will remain in the United States. It has snatched land. Possibly most egregious: The company has behaved like an arrogant foreigner, unworthy of operating in Texas.

To fight back, insulted Texas landowners are filing and appealing dozens of lawsuits, threatening to further delay a project that has already encountered many obstacles. Others are allowing activists to go on their land to stage protests. Several have been arrested.

"We've fought wars for it. We stood our ground at the Alamo for it. There's a lot of reasons that Texans are very proud of their land and proud when you own land that you are the master of that land and you control that land," said Julia Trigg Crawford, who is fighting the condemnation of a parcel of her family's 650-acre Red'Arc Farm in Sumner, about 115 miles northeast of Dallas.

Oil and agriculture have lived in peace in part because a one-time payment from a pipeline company or monthly royalties from a production rig can help finance a ranch or farm that struggle today to turn a profit from agriculture. The oil giants also respected landowners' fierce Texas independence, even sometimes drilling in a different yard or rerouting a pipeline to ensure easy access to the minerals below.

TransCanada is different. For one, it has more often sought and received court permission to condemn land when property owners didn't agree to an easement.

"This is a foreign company," Crawford said. "Most people believe that as this product gets to the Houston area and is refined, it's probably then going to be shipped outside the United States. So if this product is not going to wind up as gasoline or diesel fuel in your vehicles or mine then what kind of energy independence is that creating for us?"

While using foreign steel for a U.S. pipeline and condemning land is not all that unusual, Keystone XL has been so controversial nationally — sparking protests in Washington, Nebraska and other states, and even getting a mention in the presidential debate on Tuesday — that it may have given Texans the push they needed to fight.

Activists have handcuffed themselves to machinery. A group has moved into a grove of trees on a TransCanada easement. A 78-year-old great-grandmother, Eleanor Fairchild, whose late husband worked in the oil industry, spent a night in jail after trespassing — along with actress Daryl Hannah of "Splash" fame — on land condemned on her 425-acre farm. On Monday, eight others were arrested for their protest activities.

TransCanada's pipeline, some landowners say, is more worrisome than those built by other companies because of the tar sands oil the company wants to transport. They point to an 800,000-gallon spill of mostly tar sands oil in Michigan's Kalamazoo River in 2010. It took Enbridge, the company that owns that pipeline, 17 hours to detect the rupture, and the cleanup is still incomplete.

With a pipeline, landowners give up control of the land for a one-time check, risking a spill that could contaminate their land or water for years. It's a risk many are willing to take in exchange for cash — to a point.

Some say the risk of a spill now is too high to cooperate. Others want guarantees TransCanada will take full responsibility for a spill.

Many just want respect.

Most pipeline projects in Texas have been completed with an average of 4 percent to 10 percent of condemned land. TransCanada, however, has condemned more than 100 of the 800 or so tracts — or about 12.5 percent — of the land it needed to complete a 485-mile portion of the pipeline that runs through Texas.

Many of the lawsuits in Texas are about TransCanada's "common carrier" status. This allows companies building projects benefiting the public to condemn private property. The Texas Supreme Court recently ruled if a landowner challenges a condemnation, the company must prove its project is for the public good.

Crawford, whose family has denied other pipelines access to their land, argues that since TransCanada's pipeline will have only one access point — or a place where oil can get into the pipe — at a hub in Cushing, Okla., it does not qualify for the status, which requires the pipeline be accessible in Texas.

"This is not about the money," said Crawford, who notes that TransCanada's final offer of $20,000 amounts to less than $1 a day over 60 years, less time than her family has been on the land. "This is about the right of a landowner to control what happens on their land."

David Dodson, a TransCanada spokesman in Houston, said the company has agreements with 60,000 landowners in North America, hundreds of them in Texas. Many have been reached easily, he said. The problems in Texas, he believes, may just be a sign of the times.

"These days, anyone who attempts to build a linear infrastructure project, Texas, wherever it is, it doesn't matter, is facing increased opposition," Dodson said.

David Holland's 3,850-acre rice farm and ranch in southeast Jefferson County is littered with nearly 50 pipelines. In the five years since he was first approached by TransCanada, he said he has signed contracts with two other companies. He insists he would do the same for TransCanada — if they offered him fair value for his 10.5 acres.

Until now, Holland said, he and other landowners had given pipeline companies a roughly 20 percent discount because it was cheaper than fighting Big Oil. TransCanada offered him more than $400,000 for his land. But that, he said, was about $200 less for every 16.5 feet than he had previously received. After Holland declined, the court allowed TransCanada to take the land for $13 for every 16.5 feet — totaling slightly more than $20,000.

"Every landowner in the state is furious at them," he said.

Some landowners have reached agreements without a problem. Henry Duncan, whose 200-acre farm is across the road from the Crawford's, wouldn't say how much TransCanada paid, but feels he was fairly compensated for his 7 acres. He does wish they would use American-made steel for the pipe and hire local workers. He, too, feels they bullied landowners, but is realistic.

Pipeline money helps keep his 100 head of cattle roaming the pastures. It could help him and his wife as they age.

"To be quite honest, I'd like to see another one come through because they pay good," Duncan said.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Now there is some real irony...they are complaining because the oil may be refined and shipped out of the country, but when Obama said we should study it a little bit more, they were complaining because he delayed the pipe (NOT stopped, but slowed down...)

Just love how the Tex-Anns are able to talk out of both sides of their heads at the same time.

[erfalf]

I noticed near the beginning of the debate the other night Obama kept using the phrase "own our own energy". It soulds great and everything, but what they heck does he intend to do to help us "own our own energy"?

[nathanm]

It soulds great and everything, but what they heck does he intend to do to help us "own our own energy"?

Perhaps taking away unused leaseholds and reletting them to people who will actually use them? (I don't know, but that is something he mentioned in the debate)

[heironymouspasparagus]

The whole "energy independence debate" is bogus.  Oil and gas are fungible.  One side effect of that is it doesn't matter where it comes from - that's why so much of Alaska oil has gone overseas, in a "trade in kind" type transaction. 

And since it's big multi-nationals that control exploration/production/refining, they steer the flow to wherever they want it.  Which means that if US production went up by a factor of 10, it DOES NOT guarantee that oil will stay here.  If China demand goes up by that factor of 10, then THAT is where the oil will go.

It is stupid to even talk about becoming "energy independent" and use oil or gas in the same sentence.

[erfalf]

Perhaps taking away unused leaseholds and reletting them to people who will actually use them? (I don't know, but that is something he mentioned in the debate)

I heard him talk about that too. And from the federal government's perspective, even though there may be no activity on leased land, they are still getting a check every year from the leasor. And after several years, they would have to release the property. So it's not like there is zero cash flow from these properties. They are likely just less atractive production wise than other areas.

[nathanm]

They are likely just less atractive production wise than other areas.

Perhaps. Or perhaps they're not drilling there because they like prices to remain high. Either way, it's up to Congress and the President to decide, being public land and all. As long as they're not Teapot Doming us, anyway.

[erfalf]

Perhaps. Or perhaps they're not drilling there because they like prices to remain high.

Maybe, but unlikely. If there were enough oil to move the markets, and it was feasible to get, they would be going after it. That I am certain of.

[Townsend]

Texas judge halts TransCanada oil pipeline work

http://www.ktul.com/story/20314365/apnewsbreak-texas-judge-halts-oil-pipeline-work

HOUSTON (AP) - A Texas judge has ordered TransCanada to temporarily halt work on a private property where it is building part of an oil pipeline designed to carry tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast, the latest legal battle to plague a project that has encountered numerous obstacles nationwide.

Texas landowner Michael Bishop, who is defending himself in his legal battle against the oil giant, filed his lawsuit in the Nacogdoches County courthouse, arguing that TransCanada lied to Texans when it said it would be using the Keystone XL pipeline to transport crude oil.

Tar sands oil - or diluted bitumen - does not meet the definition as outlined in Texas and federal statutory codes which define crude oil as "liquid hydrocarbons extracted from the earth at atmospheric temperatures," Bishop said. When tar sands are extracted in Alberta, Canada, the material is almost a solid and "has to be heated and diluted in order to even be transmitted," he told The Associated Press exclusively.

"They lied to the American people," Bishop said.

Texas County Court at Law Judge Jack Sinz signed a temporary restraining order and injunction Friday, saying there was sufficient cause to halt work until a hearing Dec. 19. The two-week injunction went into effect Tuesday after Bishop posted bond.

TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard said later in a statement that the judge had agreed to push the hearing up to Thursday, Dec. 13.

David Dodson, a spokesman for TransCanada, has said courts have already ruled that tar sands are a form of crude oil. The company said in a statement emailed Tuesday that work on Bishop's property is underway and that the injunction will not have an effect on construction.

"We are on track to bring this pipeline into operation in late 2013," the statement said.

Environmentalists are concerned that if the pipeline leaks or a spill occurs, the heavy tar sands will contaminate water and land. The tar sands, they argue, are more difficult to clean than regular crude, and U.S. pipeline regulations are not suited to transport the product. They also say refining the product will further pollute the air in the Texas Gulf Coast. The state already leads the nation in greenhouse gas emissions and industrial pollution.

In February, another judge briefly halted work on the pipeline in northeast Texas due to archaeological artifacts on the property. The judge later ruled the work could resume. The pipeline is being built, although the landowner is fighting the condemnation of her land.

TransCanada wants to build the pipeline to transport tar sands from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, but has encountered roadblocks along the way. To cross the U.S.-Canadian border, the company needs a presidential permit, which was rejected earlier this year by President Barack Obama, who suggested the company reroute to avoid a sensitive environmental area in Nebraska. The company plans to reroute that portion.

In the meantime, Obama encouraged the company to pursue a shorter portion of the pipeline from Oklahoma to Texas, which would help relieve a bottleneck in Cushing. TransCanada received the necessary permits for that southern portion earlier this year and began construction.

But many Texas landowners have taken to the courts to fight the company's land condemnations in a state that has long wed its fortunes to oil.

Bishop owns 20 acres in Douglass, a town about 160 miles north of Houston. He used to raise poultry and goats on the land where he lives with his wife and 16-year-old daughter, he said, but sold the animals about two years ago because of the planned pipeline. Initially, the Vietnam War veteran said, he fought the company's attempt to condemn his land, but settled because he could not afford the lawyer's fees of $10,000.

Bishop said he settled under "duress," so he bought a law book and decided to defend himself. Since then, he has filed a lawsuit in Austin against the Texas Railroad Commission, the state agency that oversees pipelines, arguing it failed to properly investigate the pipeline and protect groundwater, public health and safety.

Aware that the oil giant could have a battery of lawyers and experts at the hearing later this month, Bishop, a 64-year-old retired chemist currently in medical school, said he is determined to fight.

"Bring 'em on. I'm a United States Marine. I'm not afraid of anyone. I'm not afraid of them," he said. "When I'm done with them, they will know that they've been in a fight. I may not win, but I'm going to hurt them."

[heironymouspasparagus]

Kind of amazing how many of these little "fiefdoms" they have down there in that last, best bastion of freedom and non-government intervention - Texaaassss.  How many of these judges do they have to pay off before this gets a rest...??