{"id":16925,"date":"2012-08-22T23:55:36","date_gmt":"2012-08-23T04:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=16925"},"modified":"2012-09-03T19:00:08","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T00:00:08","slug":"farmer-loses-case-against-keystone-xl-pipeline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/08\/22\/farmer-loses-case-against-keystone-xl-pipeline\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmer Loses Case Against Keystone XL Pipeline"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_16937\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/08\/22\/farmer-loses-case-against-keystone-xl-pipeline\/screen-shot-2012-08-23-at-9-38-07-am\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16937\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16937\" title=\"Screen Shot 2012-08-23 at 9.38.07 AM\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/08\/Screen-Shot-2012-08-23-at-9.38.07-AM-300x258.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"258\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/08\/Screen-Shot-2012-08-23-at-9.38.07-AM-300x258.png 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/08\/Screen-Shot-2012-08-23-at-9.38.07-AM.png 568w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by Terrence Henry\/StateImpact Texas<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julia Trigg Crawford has several hundred acres of land in northeast Texas. And the Keystone XL pipeline will likely go through it.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The ruling came by iPhone.<\/p>\n<p>Late Wednesday evening, Judge Bill Harris of the Lamar County Court at Law released his decision in the case of the North Texas farmer, <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/04\/19\/lives-on-the-line-landowners-fight-keystone-xl-and-eminent-domain\/\">Julia Trigg Crawford, versus the Keystone XL pipeline<\/a>, owned and operated by the Canadian company TransCanada.<\/p>\n<p>In an email to lawyers involved in the case, the judge announced he was granting TransCanada&#8217;s motion for summary judgement and denied Crawford&#8217;s plea.\u00a0The message ended with &#8220;Sent from my iPhone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After Crawford refused to allow the pipeline on her land, TransCanada <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/02\/14\/this-land-was-your-land-now-its-our-land-keystone-xl-and-eminent-domain\/\">used eminent domain<\/a> last fall to seize her property. She fought back in court, and the case finally came before Judge Harris a few weeks ago. In the meantime, construction began on the southern leg of the controversial pipeline.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is absolutely unbelievable to me eminent domain abuse continues in Texas given the revelations made during our court case,&#8221; Julia Trigg Crawford says in a statement. <!--more--><\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/02\/14\/this-land-was-your-land-now-its-our-land-keystone-xl-and-eminent-domain\/\">This Land Was Your Land, Now It\u2019s Our Land: Keystone XL and Eminent Domain<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/03\/06\/how-to-get-eminent-domain-in-texas-just-check-this-box\/\">How to Get Eminent Domain in Texas (Just Check This\u00a0Box)<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/04\/19\/lives-on-the-line-landowners-fight-keystone-xl-and-eminent-domain\/\">Life on the Line: Landowners Fight Keystone XL and Eminent Domain<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/04\/20\/law-of-the-land-how-transcanada-will-leave-its-mark-on-texas-property-rights\/\">Law of the Land: How TransCanada Will Leave Its Mark on Texas Property Rights<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/07\/25\/why-changes-to-eminent-domain-in-texas-may-be-imminent\/\">Why Changes to Eminent Domain in Texas May Be Imminent<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/07\/27\/keystone-xl-gets-final-permit-to-run-through-texas\/\">Keystone XL Gets Final Permit to Run Through Texas<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/03\/141709149-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/keystone-xl-pipeline\/\">What is the Keystone XL Pipeline?<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;With every turn we found black holes of responsibility, endless loops of non-accountability, and the cart miles in front of the horse,&#8221; Crawford says. &#8220;The Texas Railroad Commission says they have no power over eminent domain, yet turns a blind eye when pipelines under their jurisdiction state they indeed get the power from the Commission.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Much of Crawford&#8217;s argument in the case centered around whether or not the pipeline qualified as a &#8220;common carrier,&#8221; a pipeline that would be in the public interest because it would be available &#8220;for hire&#8221; for other companies to use.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So we asked TransCanada to produce their tariff rate schedule, a requirement of all Common Carriers and therefore part of proving the right of eminent domain,&#8221; Crawford says in a statement.<br \/>\n&#8220;TransCanada&#8217;s attorney refused to provide anything, responding in court that tariffs will be provided &#8216;about the time it gets ready to transport product on the line.&#8217; \u00a0That means they can&#8217;t even produce this proof they qualify as a Common Carrier until after the land is seized and the pipeline built.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So will Crawford appeal? &#8220;It\u00a0is certainly one of our options, likely a strong one,&#8221; she says in an email to StateImpact Texas. &#8220;I&#8217;m not done&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel a certain obligation to use what I\u2019ve learned, and how much we\u2019ve uncovered about this flawed process, to continue to champion for property rights,\u201d Crawford tells StateImpact Texas.<\/p>\n<p>TransCanada has not responded to requests for comment at the time of this post.*<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Update:<\/em> <\/strong>TransCanada says in a statement that &#8220;this ruling reaffirms that TransCanada has &#8211; and continues &#8211; to follow all state and federal laws and regulations as we move forward with the construction of the Gulf Coast Project&#8221; and says that most of the oil in the southern leg of the project will be from West Texas and Oklahoma as opposed to a &#8220;minority&#8221; of contracts from the &#8220;existing Keystone system.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, construction on the southern leg of the pipeline has begun, and TransCanada legally has the right to start digging on Crawford&#8217;s farm.<\/p>\n<p><em>*Edited to add &#8220;at the time of this post.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an email, the judge announced he was finding in favor of the pipeline company. But will the farmer appeal?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":16937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[116,73,50],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16925"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16940,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16925\/revisions\/16940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}