Bakken Case Heads To Iowa Supreme Court

Dakota Access Bakken Crude Pipeline Route IowaDes Moines, Iowa — Last week we told you that a Polk County judge ruled that the Iowa Utilities Board was right in their decision to allow the use of eminent domain for the building of the Dakota Access Bakken oil pipeline. The 11-hundred mile long, $3.8-billion pipeline runs through Lyon, Sioux, and O’Brien counties on it’s way to a terminal in Illinois.  Now the 14 landowners who lost that lawsuit are preparing for the next stage in their legal war.

Des Moines attorney Bill Hanigan, who represents the 14 landowners, says they’ll take the case next to Iowa’s highest court.

Hanigan says he’ll continue arguing the pipeline, built by Energy Transfer Partners, was not worthy of eminent domain.

He claims the private company is not serving a public use by piping oil across Iowa, in his words, for export to foreign countries. Hanigan says he’s optimistic about their chances before the state’s high court.

Hanigan says Iowa and federal law protects landowners from eminent domain because, in their view, Dakota Access is a private, interstate pipeline and not a public utility.

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