Keystone XL developer to meet with Nebraska landowners
LINCOLN, NEB. — The developer of the Keystone XL pipeline plans to meet with landowners along its planned route through Nebraska, South Dakota and Montana this week and will start aerial surveying of the route in all three states, a company spokesman said Monday.
TransCanada Inc. spokesman Matt John said the company will make financial offers to all landowners along the proposed route, including those who have already granted the company access to their land. Company officials are forging ahead despite pending lawsuits in Nebraska and Montana that aim to derail the project.
“It’s important that all of our landowners are treated fairly, and offering these agreements to all landowners who have previously signed easements is part of our commitment,” John said.
The $8 billion, 1,179mile pipeline would transport Canadian crude through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with lines to carry oil to Oklahoma’s commercial oil hub at Cushing and then on to Gulf Coast refineries.
John said company officials will offer a “construction completion bonus” as an incentive to get landowners to sign easement agreements. They also plan to award bonuses to early signers and will give landowners time to review the contracts with outside attorneys. John said TransCanada still hopes to begin construction in early 2019.
Opponents said they’re still confident they will thwart the project.
In Nebraska, landowners have filed a lawsuit challenging the Nebraska Public Service Commission’s decision to approve a route through the state. A federal lawsuit brought by Montana landowners and environmental groups seeks to overturn President Donald Trump’s decision to grant a presidential permit for the project, which was necessary because it would cross the U.S.-Canadian border.
President Barack Obama’s administration studied the project for years before Obama finally rejected it in 2015, citing concerns about carbon pollution. Trump reversed that decision in March 2017, but John said the State Department has begun a supplemental environmental review of the route.
The State Department has previously reviewed the route, but another analysis became necessary because the Nebraska Public Service Commission approved a different route from the one TransCanada had preferred.
“We know this song and dance very well,” said Jane Kleeb, president of the Bold Alliance, a leading pipeline opposition group. “This pipeline will never be built. It’s all P.R., and this is so typical of TransCanada.”
The pipeline faces intense resistance from environmental groups, Native American tribes and some landowners along the route who worry about its long-term impact on their groundwater and property rights. But in Nebraska, many affected landowners have accepted the project and are eager to collect payments from the company.
“People here are a step above being OK about it — they’re enthusiastic,” said Ron Schmidt, a Madison County commissioner and farmer who owns property on the route. “I’ve talked to landowners who want the route to move just a little so it can go through their property.”
Schmidt said he views the project as a one-time boost for the local economy that would help generate tax revenue. He said he also sees it as a way to promote the nation’s energy independence, an assertion that many opponents dispute.
Farmer Art Tanderup, who has fought the pipeline since 2012, said he’s still hopeful the project will never move forward and that TransCanada is “trying to appease its investors” with its announcement.
He said he opposes the project because of its potential impact on the Ogallala Aquifer, a massive groundwater system in Nebraska and seven other states, and concerns about a foreign company trying to use eminent domain on U.S. landowners.
“It’s easy for us to tell them ‘no’ if they do come knocking,” Tanderup said.