States Allow For-Profit Pipeline Companies to Seize Private Property

Truthout – by Mike Ludwig

According to Misha Mitchell, an attorney for a conservation group in Louisiana’s ecologically sensitive Atchafalaya Basin, Energy Transfer Partners and other private oil interests broke the law when they began building a section of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline on a parcel of private land in the iconic river swamp without permission from the landowners.

Mitchell filed a lawsuit against the pipeline project on behalf of landowner Peter Aaslestad and his family after construction began on their property in late July, but work continued on the property until Monday, when Energy Transfer Partners struck a deal in a local court with the plaintiffs to temporarily halt construction.  

The company must now wait until at least November to finish, when a court will decide whether Energy Transfer Partners has the legal right to “expropriate” the property under state law. Workers have already built much of the pipeline easement on the property after clearing trees and grinding them into mulch. The deal is a setback for the company and a victory for environmentalists, but much of the project is already completed.

Read the rest here: https://truthout.org/articles/states-allow-for-profit-pipeline-companies-to-seize-private-property/

3 thoughts on “States Allow For-Profit Pipeline Companies to Seize Private Property

  1. I am so damned totally pissed off! When we go to my husband’s family reunions in the Gulf area (LA and MS) we pass through the absolutely wonderful Atchafalaya Swamp area along I-10…home to Cajun music (aka Zydecko) and Cajun crawdads, etc and get to see a few alligators every now and then. Destroy the Atchafalaya Swamp, destroy an entire culture my husband was affiliated with and great Zydecko music and awesome food. Does oligarch puppet Frump know no shame? (Of course not! No one who kisses Israel’s and Talmudic ass knows shame!) Bad enough Frump and Co. are also destroying what’s left of Native American culture as well. Wounded Knee indeed! And I’m sure the Big Bend (trans-Texas pipeline) is next…

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