The landowners are seeking to block the Dakota Access pipeline on their land until a lawsuit challenging the pipeline’s legality can be heard in court.
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“Pipeline construction is moving quickly, and our clients hope to have an immediate decision from the board” on their emergency motion to temporarily prevent construction of the Dakota Access pipeline across the property of 15 landowners while a lawsuit remains pending in Polk County District Court. About 300 people are still camped out in opposition to the $3.8 billion pipeline, which will pass through Iowa, Illinois, North Dakota and South Dakota.
The IUB has ordered a temporary halt on construction until Monday.
An attorney representing 14 Iowa landowners in the pipeline’s path argued the board must put the project on hold until the dispute between those landowners and the pipeline company is resolved by the courts, because if the courts rule in favor of landowners after the pipeline is already laid on their land, those landowners lose their constitutional right to due process.
Construction crews for the Bakken oil pipeline will be staying home Thursday.
The board adjourned until 4:30 p.m. Thursday, and will meet again Friday afternoon. Hundreds of union members employed on the pipeline project rallied in support of continued construction outside the Iowa Utilities Board’s office prior to the hearing.
But the landowners’ attorney, Bill Hannigan, said that the case is “a question of whether a private entity which provides no services whatsoever to Iowans may nonetheless use the state’s police power to take private property from private citizens for its private purposes and its private profits”.
Hanigan says if the Iowa Utilities Board doesn’t approve their request then they’ll go back to district court.
Attorneys for Dakota Access said landowners have missed their legal opportunity to halt the project and should no longer be allowed to stand in its way. The project would move at least 450,000 barrels of crude daily from the Bakken oil patch.
However, a separate case is pending in federal court in Washington, D.C., in which a judge is expected to rule by September 9 on a request for an injunction by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe to stop the pipeline project.
Pipeline construction in North Dakota is almost complete, and is 63 percent complete in South Dakota and 62 percent complete in IL, the company said. They also said Dakota Access would not be substantially harmed if their motion was granted by state regulators.
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The landowners immediately filed the emergency action request with the board.
