William Petroski

bpetrosk@dmreg.com

Two lawsuits were filed Friday in northwest Iowa's Cherokee County by owners of farmland that a Texas company is trying to seize for construction of the Bakken crude oil pipeline.

The litigation could have far-reaching implications, because there 1,295 properties along the 346-mile pipeline route in Iowa, and voluntary easements still haven't been obtained on about 168 Iowa land parcels. Construction on the pipeline began this week in North Dakota, South Dakota and Illinois, but the Iowa Utilities Board still hasn't authorized the start of construction in Iowa because of a lack of federal permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Dakota Access, LLC, a unit of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, has filed applications to use eminent domain to secure access to agricultural land owned by Marvin and Bonnie Zoch and Marian and Verdell Johnson. Eminent domain is the power of the government to take private property and convert it into public use in return for fair-market compensation.

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The lawsuits and related motions in Cherokee County District District ask the court to suspend the condemnation proceedings, said Bill Hanigan, a lawyer for the Davis Brown law firm in Des Moines, which represents both couples. A Cherokee County compensation commission is scheduled to meet June 13 to begin valuing the farmland for seizure by Dakota Access, the lawyer said.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to stop the county meetings until the court has had time to consider whether a private company is entitled to use eminent domain to seize farmland. The suit contends that state and federal law prohibits the taking of their property because Dakota Access is not a utility and therefore should not have the ability to forcibly access Iowa landowners' property across the state to build the pipeline.

A separate lawsuit was recently filed in Polk County District Court by Iowa landowners who argue that the Iowa Utilities Board made a mistake in granting the use of eminent domain, citing the same reasons as behind the Cherokee County litigation.

"Landowners have begun receiving notices of the county compensation meetings," Hanigan said in a prepared statement. "Unless suspended, the meetings will result in Dakota Access taking possession of the farmland. We are asking Iowa's courts to suspend these actions until after a full hearing on the merits of each landowner's case."

"We expect additional lawsuits will be filed in additional counties in the coming weeks," he said.

Representatives of Dakota Access didn't immediately respond Friday to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

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Dakota Access has asked the Iowa Utilities Board for permission to immediately begin construction of the pipeline at its own risk in areas along the Iowa route that are not under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. However, the three-member board is still studying the request and hasn't made a decision.

Dakota Access had previously promised that construction wouldn't begin in Iowa until it had secured all necessary state and federal permits. But the pipeline company now contends that additional regulatory delays could push work on the project into 2017, which would interfere with spring planting by Iowa farmers.

The 30-inch pipeline would transport up to 570,000 barrels of crude oil daily from North Dakota's Bakken oil patch to a distribution hub at Patoka, Ill. Dakota Access says the construction project would employ 2,000 to 4,000 workers in Iowa.