Keystone XL pipeline is issue of property rights for some ranchers

[xchrom]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/keystone-xl-pipeline-is-issue-of-property-rights-for-some-ranchers/2012/07/27/gJQAqlQgDX_story.html

WINNER, S.D. — John Harter stood on his ranch in the flat sun, a stiff breeze muffling the sound of his voice. Small sandy mounds rose behind him. In front, lay pasture and grazing cattle. At an old well, he stopped to point to water just five or six feet below the surface. Now he looked back at the row of tall cottonwood trees where his pickup truck was parked.

The Keystone XL pipeline would come through right here, he said.

He doesn’t want it to, and he’s even fought to stop it. It’s not a question of how much TransCanada pays him. He just doesn’t want strangers and heavy equipment tearing a 110-foot-wide gash through his land, cutting down trees and burrowing under the sand hills and pasture.

He worries that it could take years for the land to recover. And the pipeline, buried four or five feet deep, will be sitting in water, the same water that is part of the vast Ogallala aquifer and which lies so close to the surface that his pasture does not need to be irrigated. He worries that a spill or leak will spread because the soil is so porous.

[leftyohiolib]

1. he should worry b/c of the way america does business- the company will lie and cheat to get that

thing up and running as fast as possible.shortcutting safety procedures if it leaks they'll bribe the hell out of politicians to clear them of liability. business the american way.