Bakken Pipeline opponents file new objections

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement led a group of people Thursday to the Des Moines offices of the Iowa Utilities Board to turn in formal objections to a proposed crude pipeline that would run through 18 Iowa counties.

The board will decide whether to grant Dakota Access, a unit of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, a permit for the 30-inch diameter, 450,000-barrel-per-day pipeline, which would move oil from North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois.

'I don't see why it should be going through Iowa,” said Dick Lamb, whose 300-acre farm west of Ames is on the proposed pipeline route. 'The ultimate destination for most of the oil is refineries along the Texas coast.”

Lamb, who filed a formal objection to the project earlier this year, said he's concerned about pipeline leaks and the damage to the land from installing the pipeline. Further, the pipeline would make it so Lamb and his wife couldn't later sell the land for development because its prohibited to build over a pipeline.

'It takes away all future rights of our property,” he said.

Iowa CCI and other like-minded groups filed more than 2,600 formal objections Thursday, said Nathan Malachowski, a community organizer with CCI. The group would like to see the Utilities Board slow down the review process, which calls for a public hearing sometime between Nov. 12 and Dec. 2, with a decision around the start of 2016.

Pipeline supporters tout the construction jobs it will bring to Iowa and the relatively safe record for transporting oil.