Northwest Iowa — More than 80 people who oppose the Iowa route for the proposed Bakken oil pipeline protested outside the Iowa Utility Board’s offices Thursday. That proposed pipeline would run through Lyon and O’Brien Counties here in northwest Iowa.
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement organized the demonstration and brought a box full of letters with them.
That’s Nathan Malachowski, an organizer with the group. Mary Clarke of Norwalk says oil is destroying the planet.
Kriss Wells of Davenport says the pipeline makes no sense.
Dan Gannon, a farmer near Mingo, says if there’s a spill, the oil will wind up polluting the state’s groundwater supply.
The proposed pipeline would run diagonally through a 240-acre field on Gannon’s farm. A handful of union members stood across the street from the demonstrators, holding signs in support of the project. They see it as a job creator. The proposed pipeline would ship oil from North Dakota to a refinery in Illinois. The Iowa Utilities Board is expected to decide by the end of the year whether to allow the pipeline to be built through Iowa. Pipeline backers say the Texas-based company building the pipeline will pay nearly 30-million dollars in property taxes in Iowa each year, plus another 60-million in compensation to affected landowners.
