William Petroski

bpetrosk@dmreg.com

The Iowa Utilities Board announced Tuesday it has scheduled four days of public meetings in February for deliberations on a request by a Dallas-based company to construct a crude oil pipeline through 18 Iowa counties.

The three-member regulatory panel plans to meet on Feb. 8-11 to discuss the state permit sought by Dakota Access LLC, a unit of Energy Transfer Partners. The meetings will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. each day, said Don Tormey, a board spokesman. The board has previously indicated it could make a decision on the pipeline permit as early as February, but Tormey said it is unlikely a board decision will be made at these deliberation meetings.

The pipeline, which would cost $3.8 billion, would carry up to 570,000 barrels of light sweet crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken oil patch through South Dakota and Iowa to a distribution hub at Patoka, Ill., where it could be loaded onto rail cars or transported via another pipeline to the Gulf Coast. State regulators in South Dakota and Illinois have already approved the project, and a request for approval is pending in North Dakota.

Lisa Dillinger, a Dakota Access spokeswoman, said Tuesday the company has purchased voluntary easement agreements on nearly 80 percent of the properties along the route in Iowa.

The Iowa meetings will be held in the regulatory board's hearing room at 1375 E. Court Ave. at the Iowa Capitol complex in Des Moines. The meetings will be live-streamed on the board's website. If the board reaches a decision during these meetings, a decision is not final until the written board order is issued, Tormey said.

The board may consider a motion to hold a closed meeting to discuss its decision, according to a notice posted by the board. If the session is closed, it will be reopened at a time to be announced, the notice said.

The Iowa Utilities Board met in Boone in November for a public hearing on the pipeline project that drew more than 200 witnesses for and against the state permit request. The board then conducted a lengthy, trial-like evidentiary hearing to consider the facts of the case.

Dakota Access officials have said they would like to start construction on the 1,134-mile pipeline this spring with completion late this year.

Strong support has been voiced for the pipeline by union construction workers who would help build the project, and by Iowa business interests who see it as contributing to the nation’s energy independence and a robust state economy. In addition, some farmers say transporting oil by pipeline will help ease congestion on railroads, expediting shipments of Midwest grain at harvest.

But many farmers along the route say they don’t want the pipeline to pass through their land, fearing damage to agricultural drainage lines and reduced crop yields, and they strongly object to eminent domain being authorized to gain easements for the pipeline route. Environmentalists have joined the fight, expressing worries about pipeline spills and objecting to developing infrastructure to transport fossil fuels. In addition, the Meskwaki Indian tribe opposes the project, expressing concerns the pipeline would harm Native American graves while crossing through ancestral and ceded treaty lands.