Keystone battles on in Texas
Environmental cause célèbre awaits court decision on Keystone XL pipeline
It’s a case that pits a Canadian oil giant against a Texas farmer, with the farmer battling in court to stop the Keystone XL pipeline from crossing her family’s property.
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 today, 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 célèbre 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- related project.
President Barack Obama last month denied a permit to allow Transcanada to build the pipeline, which would carry 830,000 barrels a day from
I’m just someone who decided to stand up and push back.
JULIA TRIGG CRAWFORD
FARM MANAGER
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 Gov. Rick Perry, Senator John Cornyn and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
The fight between Crawford and Transcanada dates to 2008, when the company applied to build the 2,700- km Keystone XL pipeline. A section of the proposed line crosses a hay meadow on Crawford’s farm on the banks of the Red River on the Texas- Oklahoma border.
Crawford and 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 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.
The legal fight centres around Transcanada’s claim it has the
We are not going to have one landowner hold up a multi- billion dollar project.
JAMES FREEMAN
TRANSCANADA’S LAWYER
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, 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.
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.”