More than a year after the contentious Dakota Access pipeline began carrying crude oil underneath Iowa fields, local landowners who opposed the project finally got the chance to argue their case in front of the Iowa Supreme Court.

"We've waited a long time for this," Boone County farmer Dick Lamb said.

The 1,172-mile pipeline transports about 470,000 barrels of crude oil each day from the Bakken formation in North Dakota to a distribution hub in Patoka, Illinois, cutting through 18 Iowa counties along the way.

After the Iowa Utilities Board approved the project and the use of eminent domain to gain easements on properties, several landowners contested the decision in court.

They were joined by other groups, including the Sierra Club Iowa chapter. In demonstrations, landowners, environmentalists and American Indians fought the $3.8 billion pipeline up and down the route as crews built the pipeline in 2016.

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In February 2017, Polk County District Judge Jeffrey Farrell ruled that pipeline builders acted lawfully in seizing private land through Iowa's eminent domain laws. But the landowners appealed the decision to the state's highest court.

The case is being closely watched because it will determine the fate of the hotly contested pipeline in Iowa. But the ruling could also set a precedent for how courts interpret Iowa's eminent domain laws in the future.

Lawyers argued in front of Iowa's seven justices for about an hour Wednesday. The case now awaits the court's decision.

The Iowa Constitution allows private land to be taken by eminent domain "for public use." A more specific Iowa statute gives the Iowa Utilities Board permitting authority for hazardous pipelines.

The law says that permits can only go to projects the board determines will "promote the public convenience and necessity."

William Hanigan, a lawyer representing landowners, argued that the pipeline doesn't provide any public good to Iowans. Iowans have no access to the pipeline, he said, and the state doesn't produce or refine oil.

"The pipeline has no on-ramps, it has no off-ramps in the state," Hanigan said.

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Bret Dublinske, a lawyer representing the pipeline builder, reminded the justices that the pipeline has operated for the last 15 months, providing commercial service to refiners and processors. He also said it received all the regulatory approval it needed before construction began.

"The Dakota Access pipeline is now an established fact, and this case is largely, if not entirely, a moot one," Dublinske said.

Justice David Wiggins dismissed that claim, pointing out that the litigants appealed the lower court's decision in a timely matter. He said the court frequently strikes down the interpretation of zoning regulation — decisions that can force the demolition of building structures.

"If you're right, every time the appeals process outlasts the establishment of the alleged illegal action, it's always moot," Wiggins said. "So basically there's no appeal."

Dublinske said the law considers oil pipelines as "critical infrastructure." He also argued that Iowans theoretically have access to the pipeline as investors.

And he said the pipeline offers a portion of its capacity to a wide variety of shippers through an "open season."

Though the pipeline was hotly contested in public, Dublinske said the landowners and the Sierra Club hadn't met the legal bar for overturning the decisions of the Utility Board and the lower court.

"Just because it has a higher profile doesn't change what the law is," Dublinske said. "And in this case the law is clear."

If the Supreme Court finds in favor of the landowners, the decision could be sent back to a lower court. It's unclear whether any relief granted would be awarded in monetary damages or through some action that would remove the pipeline from landowners' property.

"Our goal is to stop the oil from flowing because of the likelihood of spills, because of the climate change issues," Wally Taylor, a lawyer for the Sierra Club Iowa chapter, told the justices. "So as long as the oil stops flowing, that satisfies our specific interests, although we certainly sympathize with landowners and support their case."

The pipeline, built by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, was met with protests up and down the four-state route, sparking a cultural movement among environmentalists and indigenous tribes.

Most notably, thousands camped out near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota in one of the largest gatherings of native people in modern history. That tribe argued that the pipeline would unearth sacred sites and threaten its water supply by traveling under the banks of neighboring Lake Oahe.

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While the camps there have long since vanished and much of the attention surrounding the pipeline has faded away, landowners opposing the project said Wednesday that their fight had only just begun.

"It's been a long battle to get here," LaVerne Johnson, who owns a farm near Pilot Mound, said at a press conference following the court hearing. "We feel like this is our day in court and I feel very confident that we're going to go home victorious."

Landowners, environmentalists rally against pipeline

During Wednesday morning's press conference, landowners and environmental groups doubled down on their goal of shutting down the massive Dakota Access pipeline.

"When the Iowa Sierra Club and farmers make common cause for justice, you know something is up," said Carolyn Raffensperger, chair of the local Sierra Club chapter. "You know that when farmers, who are not usually on the side of the environment, join together with us, that we have a unique call for justice."

Raffensperger, also the executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, pointed out that the pipeline builders have not provided proof of the $25 million in insurance required by the IUB permit.

On Tuesday, the Iowa Utilities Board sent an order to the pipeline company seeking more information on its insurance policy. Dakota Access showed proof of a $50 million policy, but the board said it's unclear whether the insurance policies provide at least $25 million in insurance coverage to Iowans in particular. And it's unclear how Iowa landowners, businesses or municipalities would make a claim in the case of an oil spill.

The company has one week to provide a status update to the IUB.

"Isn't that ironic that one day before their Supreme Court hearing on the validity of that permit and the validity of eminent domain, they don't appear to be in compliance with the very permit they were given?" Raffensperger said.

Steven Hickenbottom said pipeline builders caused irrevocable damage to his 1,000-acre farm near Fairfield. The pipeline traverses through 11 terraces, he said, and has damaged his existing drainage system.

"It does look like it will probably never be the same because we've got ground from 30 feet down that's been mixed up with my subsoil," he said. "So it's probably never going to recover."

Hickenbottom said the damage has been so severe that he's now rethinking his longstanding plans of handing down the farm to the next generation in his family.

"Do I really want to leave this to my next generation?" he said. " You just don't know when something's going to go wrong."

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