Iowa landowners from Boone, Cherokee and Buena Vista counties have filed a lawsuit in District Court in Cherokee County against Energy Transfer Partners. The company wants to build the Dakota Access Pipeline that would carry crude oil from North Dakota across South Dakota, into Iowa, to end up in Illinois. Boone County landowner, Dick Lamb says they’re asking the court for a ruling on whether the Iowa Utilities Board has the authority to give Energy Transfer Partners eminent domain authority.
Lamb says Energy Transfer Partners offered him fair market value for access to his property for the pipeline, but that is much less than what the property is worth, so he refused to sell.
Lamb says had he given up that access it would have destroyed the commercial value of the property.
He says they’d then be stuck with the pipeline and the risks with it, as well as the resulting problems in trying to farm the land likely resulting in lesser yields.
