Story County to receive $1.6 million in pipeline agreement Bakken will drill under nature trail

AMES - Story County supervisors have agreed to let Dakota Access, the company building the Bakken pipeline across Iowa, to cross the Heart of Iowa Nature Trail in Story County.

The request for easement rights was granted by the Board of Supervisors on July 19, but it has left some people in the county concerned the construction will damage the trail and inconvenience its users.

According to Supervisor Rick Sanders, the deal that was negotiated will minimize inconvenience while providing every possible reassurance of safety.

Dakota Access agreed to bore under the trail instead of over it as originally planned.

The pipeline company also agreed to give the Story County Conservation Board up to $1.6 million to use for paving a four-mile section of the trail, but the conservation board will be free to use the funds on other projects if it so decides.

The Story County Conservation Board, after weeks of negotiating with Dakota Access, recommended the supervisors approve the easement.

Bret Dublinske, a Des Moines attorney working for Dakota Access, said if the supervisors had not approved the agreement, the company would have pursued eminent domain for an easement to cross the trail.

Despite the company's legal threats and the compensation given to the county, there are those who believe that Story County, along with the other counties the pipeline will touch, should have tried to stop the pipeline from being built.

Carolyn Raffensperger of Ames, executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, said she is concerned by all the decisions that have led to the pipeline being allowed to cross the state.

It may not seem like the county boards have much power to stop something like the Bakken pipeline, she said. But when you add up all the approvals county boards have given across the state, she believes they could have acted together to deny permits and easements and stopped the pipeline.

'These are places where the county boards actually had some authority, and it's just tragic that they're not fully defending the public good in this case, which is really their charge,” Raffensperger said.

Sanders said the supervisors had the option to deny the easement and permits but, in the long run, he believed it would have made the process more difficult, without any guarantee of a different ending.

'It would have definitely drug this thing out, and it would have definitely cost the county money, but I can't predict how long it would have shut them down,” Sanders said.