Keystone Pipeline Sparks Property Rights Concerns

Project would cut parcels in half, run roughshod over owners' preferences

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – Bob Allpress, a farmer from the tiny Nebraska border town of Naper, isn't dead set against the Keystone XL Pipeline, though he wishes the company behind the project, TransCanada, would take it someplace else.

"We're not 100 percent against the pipeline," Allpress said. "If only it were sensibly located."

Allpress is just one property owner affected by the pipeline, a 36-inch oil conduit slated to run from eastern Alberta, Canada, to southern Texas oil refineries. He lives on more than 900 acres, ground he splits between crops – usually corn – and cows.

The pipeline, as it snakes through the ground, will also come within about 150 yards of his home. It will also come too close, he says, to a well that provides drinking water for his family and a few neighbors.

TransCanada wants to stick the pipeline right down the middle of his land, cutting the cropland and the pasture in half. The company, if it ever wins federal approval for the project, will take forever a 50-feet wide swath of land from Allpress, and an additional 60 feet span during construction to accommodate cranes, truck and digging equipment.