TransCanada has started legal moves to begin condemning private land in South Dakota in preparation for its Keystone XL oil pipeline.
Eminent domain petitions were filed in state court against land in Harding County that is owned by two families, according to the Rapid City Journal. And one of them intends to put up a fight.
“I got nothing to lose,” said Jeffrey Jensen who is prepared to take his fight to court. “Wouldn’t bother me in the least. They actually want to give less than they did before on my first easement.”
He had originally signed a five-year contract but the easement expired after the Obama administration denied Keystone permitting for the $8 billion pipeline.
TransCanada wants to build the 1,184-mile pipeline to carry tar sands oil from Canada through Montana, South Dakota and to Nebraska where it would join the original Keystone line that carries oil through Oklahoma and to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.
The company has 94 percent of the private property easements needed for the project, according to TransCanada’s latest quarterly report filed with the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission. The pipeline would cross over 300 private parcels in the state. The company has yet to secure easements on state land.